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^-\ TWO SERMONS X 




PREACHED IN THK 



Jirst IC0iiigire0ati0HJiI ^liitfcli; 



IN 



]si: I L T o isr , 



ON 



THE loTH AND 22d OF JUNE, 1862, 



AND 



STJGS-G-KSarED .■R'y 



THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 



ON 



THE llTH OF JUNE, 1862. 



By JOHN H. MORISOJK, D. D. 




BOSTON: 

JOSEPH G. TORREY, PRINTER, 32 CONGRESS STREET. 

18 6 2. 



^ 



TWO SERMONS 



PREACHED IN THE 



IN 



MILTON, 



ON 



THE 15th and 22d OF JUNE, 1862, 



AND 



SXIG-O-ES'TED BY 

THE CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION, 



ON 



THE 11th of JUNE, 1862, 



By JOHN H. MORISON, D. D. 



BOSTON: 

JOSEPH G. TORREY, PRINTER, 32 CONGRESS STREET 

18 6 2. 



'M 



**«OWa 



PREFACE 



These are not historical discourses. The strictly historical 
part of our Centennial Celebration was ably treated by Hon. 
James Murray Robbins, who understands thoroughly every 
thing that relates to the town, and whose father and grand- 
father filled a most important place in its history. What 
I have attempted is to awaken an interest in those who 
have gone before us by exhibiting as I might, in two sermons, 
some of the characteristics of the place, illustrating what I 
had to say by very slight biographical sketches. I have thrown 
into the form of notes a few other facts, of Uttle interest to 
strangers, but which may have a meaning and a value here. 
There are very subtle chains of association which bind togeth- 
er the generations of those who live in the same neighborhood, 
and make them from first to last, one living organization, so that 
something of the same spirit flows >thit)A^ and animates them all. 
We have as little of this personal identity as any com- 
munity that I have known. And yet there is a sense in which 
it does exist, and these discourses are given to the fiiends who 
have kindly asked for them in the hope that in some small way, 
they may help to connect us more closely with those who have 
gone before us, and lead us to look forward with new interest 
and increased efibrts for their improvement to those who shall 
come after us to dwell amid these beautiful works of God 
when we are dead. 



SERMON. 



One generation passeth away, and another generation 
COMETH. — Ecclesiastes 1 : 4. 

I PROPOSE to dwell this morning on a few considera- 
tions suggested by the recent Celebration hi this town. 
We, — those who are and those who have been resi- 
dents m this place, — have met together during the 
last week with appropriate services to commemorate 
our history for the past two centuries. As I was lis- 
tening to the instructive and excellent discourse that 
was delivered here, the first thing that struck me was 
the similarity of features that marked the history and 
character of our people from the earliest settlement of 
the place. One generation has passed away, another 
has come. Those bom here have gone to distant 
places, and strangers have entered into the homes 
which they left. Very few homesteads are occupied 
now by the direct descendants of those who first set- 
tled here, and yet the marked characteristics of the 
people are to-day very much what they were half a 
century or a century and a half ago. The town is not 
and never has been one commuiiit}^ It is made up, 
and from the beginnmg it has been made up, from 



6 

nearly all the classes of society that are to be found in 
the State. During the last sixteen years, at every 
election, I think, the vote m this town has pretty 
fau'ly represented the vote of the whole State, so that 
when the vote of Milton is declared, we know very 
well what is the vote of Massachusetts. Nearly all 
interests, professions and pui'suits are represented here 
in just about the same proportion to each other as in 
the State. This gives us, and from the beghmiag has 
given us, a various, and in some respects a heterogen- 
eous population. We have fewer things m common 
than is usual m a small to"\\Ti. We are less compactly 
united. We have less a feeling of interest and pride 
in what relates to the town. A single fact will illus- 
trate what I mean : The second officer in command 
of the great army now at Richmond — a man of dis- 
tinguished military abilit)% who two weeks ago to-day, 
in the battle at Fair Oaks, by what seemed almost an im- 
possibility, did more perhaps than any other man to safe 
the fortunes of the day, was a Milton boy, — the son of 
Milton parents, and educated in our Milton schools. 
But I doubt whether there is another town in the 
United States, where such a fact would be so little re- 
garded, and where on a public occasion like that of 
the last week, so little notice would be taken of a son 
so distinguished, and at this moment holding so im- 
portant a post. 

Our lines have fallen to us in pleasant places. We 
are attached to the natui-al featui-es of the town. We 
love its hills and streams, its woods and meadows, and 
carry them, wherever we go, in om* thoughts and our 
affections. We are thankful that our children should 



be born and trained up with these beautiful works of 
God around them. As Gov. Hutchinson, after he had 
removed to England, is said to have longed and pined 
for his pleasant home on Milton Hill, and never could 
find any other spot to take its place in his affections, 
so, many a native of this town, forced to go abroad and 
find employment elsewhere, has always turned with 
lo^dng, longing heart towards this beautifid home 
of his childhood. And yet it would, perhaps be hard 
to find, living side by side, under the same local 
institutions and laws, in a country town, the same 
number of persons bound together by so slight a com- 
munity of feelmg, or of social intercourse. And so 
apparently it has been from the beguining. Peter 
Thacher, in 1681, speaks of the " lamentable animosi- 
ties and divisions" which prevailed even at that early 
period. There is, and has been no want of kind feel- 
ing. Individuals have had their personal friends. — 
Families have had theh ties and theh gatherings. 
But the mere relations of neighborhood have been al- 
most ignored. In the interest which a community 
usually takes in its OAvn sons, in the encouragement 
with which it follows them in a career of honorable 
exertion, in the sympathy which it feels for them in 
their reverses, in the care with which it treasures up 
the memory of their high quahties and praise-worthy 
acts, this town has been unlike any other town that I 
have known. And I cannot but hope that the cele- 
bration of the last week, by reviving the memory of 
the past, by remmding us how much we have in com- 
mon and how greatly our social privileges are in- 
creased by sharing them with others, may do some- 



8 

thing to create and perpetuate the feelmg which should 
bind each one of us, not only to the soil on which he 
was born, but to the commimit)' in which he lives, — 
leadmg us to recognize and hold m honor the vu'tues 
of its children, and to encourage them with the thought 
that here at least then* good deeds and names will be 
held in proud and grateful remembrance. Such a 
community of feeling here, greeting the child when he 
first enters oiu' schools, watching over him with a kmd 
and almost parental interest, rejoicing in his successes, 
following him wherever he goes, is among the most 
gratefid and effective encouragements that can be ex- 
tended to the yomig. There is something of this feel- 
ing among us. There are those ui whose operdng vir- 
tues and graces we have taken an honest pride and 
satisfaction. There are faithfid ones among us here 
whose promise of future usefidness is a joy to many 
hearts. And there are young men of spotless lives — 
modest and brave and true — now at thek posts of 
honor and of danger afar off, whom we can hardly 
thhik of without a glow of emotion, and a secret prayer 
for theh safety and success. 

Om- thoughts are natiu'ally carried back to the ele- 
ments of oiu' New England society. Fhst, there was 
the Church. The chiu'ch which came over to Ply- 
mouth in the Mayflower was m itself a complete and 
independent organization, and a type of all the rest. 
Accordmg to his words who has said, " \Vherever two 
or three are gathered together in my name there am I 
in the midst of them," those devout men and women 
had come together in their Master's name, and bound 
themselves together by a religious compact which has 



9 

served as a type of oui' whole civil polity. After the 
pattern of the church was the town, with its local in- 
stitutions and laws, a separate and almost independent 
organization, so that, if it shoidd be cut off, as the Ply- 
mouth colony was for a time, from all other communi- 
ties and sovereignties, it might have m itself the right 
to execute all the functions of civil government. These 
to^vnships, borrowmg then- life as they did, in our 
early history, from the church, are the peculiar feature 
of our New England civilization. More than three- 
quarters of the money spent and of the most important 
legislation of the country is decided upon in these pri- 
mary meetings of the people, and they alone, self-sup- 
porting and self-regulating as they are, make a repub- 
lic like ours possible. 

But the town organization is made possible only by 
the more vital influences which are at work within it- 
self. Of these, the Christian church has held the 
most important place. It has been made in no small 
measure the medium of religious instruction and reli- 
gious life to each individual soid. Its divine sphit en- 
ters the school, and makes knowledge a power, not for 
evil, but for good. It enters the home, purifies its af- 
fections, softens its asperities, consecrates the marriage 
ties, welcomes the little child into its bosom, opens its 
blessed promises to the dying, and hfts up the hearts of 
the sorrowing by its words of immortal faith at the 
very portals of the tomb. 

Say what we may of the stem creed of our ancest- 
ors, and its hardening influence on harsh and ungainly 
natures, it was not aU harshness. In the sentiment of 
reverance which it fostered, in the habit which it en- 
2 



10 



couraged of looking with profound and earnest thought 
into the solemn and awful mysteries of our rehgion, in 
the unshrinkmg courage with which it accepted 
whatever it believed to be a divme truth, however 
severe its exactions, it cultivated some of the sublimest 
qualities which belong to the human character. Those 
ancient men who fii'st trod these roads and looked up- 
on these hills, or gazed off upon the distant waters, 
carried with them a faith which made the earth the 
footstool of God's throne, and themselves the chosen 
servants of God to establish here in the wilderness a 
divinely ordered commonwealth, rich m all the prom- 
ises and fruits of holy livmg. 

And the milder vhtues were not forgotten or des- 
pised. The pastors of this church, from the begimiing, 
were men of gentle, benignant characters. Peter 
Thacher, who lived near the brook, perhaps a third of 
a mile back from the spot where we now are, was a 
man whose daily walk with God was shown more in 
the graces and charities of a Christian life than in the 
severe teachmgs of a harsh and ungracious theology. 
He was the son of a Christian mmister and the father 
almost of a race of muiisters, some of them distinguish- 
ed for intelligence and wit, but upon the whole charac- 
terized by a winning gentleness of speech and of life. 
I love to think of this good man, forty-seven years the 
minister of Christ in this toAvn, in simplicity and godly 
sincerity having his conversation among his people, 
preachhig and prayuig and living among them and for 
them, buiying aU the fhst generation of settlers and 
almost all of their childi-en — till at length, having 
grown old in their service, he appeared for the last time 



11 



in the chiu-ch. " He preached," says Cotton Mather 
m his funeral sermon, " both parts of the day, pie also 
baptized two children,] felt more hearty than orduiary, 
and performed the domestic ser^dces, with the repetition 
of the sermons, hi the evening. Upon which finding 
himself weary, he said, ' we read in a certaui place, the 
prayers of David are ended, what if it shoidd now be 
said, the prayers of Peter are ended.' It fell out accord- 
ulgly. On the day foUowmg a fever seized him, and 
the next Sabbath ended with liim in his eveiiastmgrest." 

" In the time of his illness he expressed a most love- 
ly acquiescence hi the will of his heavenly Father, and 
a sold rejoicing m the hope of the glory of God." 

I know not where to find a more beautifid pictiu-e 
of Patriarchal dymg than is given of him in his last 
hour. " Kecovering," says Cotton Mather, " out of a 
short cloud, upon the clear use of his reason, he called 
for his domestics and for a staff to lean upon. So sit- 
ting up, he blessed each of them, and made a most 
pathetic and audible prayer with them and for them. 
And then lying down, his last words were the words 
of a conqueror, and more than a conqueror, ' I am go- 
ing to Christ hi glory.' Thus his purified sphit flew 
away to the chambers of a Redeemer waiting to be 
gracious. He died hi the calm with which he lived, and 
exphed with no groans but those of one longing to be 
with Him, with whom to be is by far the best of all." 

His successor, John Taylor, was settled here at the 
age of twenty -five, and died when only forty-six years 
old. He was evidently a man of mild deportment, 
and of engaging personal quahties, I have read his 
letters written through a series of years, to his father in- 



12 

law, in Portsmouth, N. H. They give evidence of an 
affectionate, devout and thoughtful man. They are 
perhaps a little more formal than would be in keep- 
ing now with the habits of the age, but give no mdica- 
tion of the moroseness or severity which we are too 
apt to attribute to the clergymen of that generation. 
He was evidently a Cliristian gentleman and scholar. 
His heart was in his work. He loved his people, and 
rejoiced to labor for their good. The only work of 
his which is now visible among us — the house which 
he built and which is stdl occupied by his kmdi'ed — 
bears -v^dtness to his taste. He was cut down in the 
prime of his manhood, and m the midst of his labors, 
and was mourned, over and lamented by his people as 
one who had endeared himself to them by his fidelity, 
and his thoughtful, affectionate care for them. 

He was succeeded by Nathaniel Robbins, who was 
settled at the age of twenty-fom* in 1750, and who 
continued the minister of the town for a period of 
forty-five years, closing his ministerial labors with his life 
in 1795. From all that I can learn of him, he was a 
man of a most genial nature, more ready to perform a 
kind act for a neighbor than to rebuke him for wrong 
domg, working upon his farm as well as in his study, 
more intent on the practical duties of oiu* religion than its 
mysterious doctrines, a lover of peace and concord, and 
doing what he could to remove all uncharitableness 
and to promote harmony and good will among his peo- 
ple. He did not dislike a harmless joke, and was 
always, I beheve, a man of a cheerful, happy disposi- 
tion, a pleasant companion, and a beloved pastor. 
These three ministries reach thro' a period of a 



13 



hundred and fourteen years, and come do\^Ti almost to 
to the close of the last century. They witnessed great 
and momentous changes in the history of our coimtry. 
Thacher was born in 1651, when we were in the fee- 
ble and exposed days of our mfancy. Robbins was 
here during the stormy period of our revolutionary 
history, when his people knew what it was to make 
sacrifices for their country. It is said that one woman 
in his parish — a widow — used to sit knitting before 
her door, by the brook, which still bears her name, 
when the weather would permit, and asked of any 
stranger who passed by, " What 's the news from the 
war? I have four sons gone to the war — what's 
the news from the war ? " One of her sons was Col. 
another the Lieut. Col. of the 1st Mass. Regiment, 
while the other two served perhaps as faithfully in 
more humble capacities. So our fathers lived in this 
beautifid. to\vn, workmg out the great problem of life 
each in his own way, serving God according to their 
light in then* day and generation. And it becomes us 
who have entered into theu* labors to hold them in 
grateful and affectionate remembrance. 

There are some points of a more private and do- 
mestic character which I wish to dwell upon. But 
that must be deferred till the next Sunday. A word 
more at this time. I have spoken of the fii'st three 
ministers of this town. Hardly more than two or three 
persons are now among us who remember the last of 
these men. More than foiu* generations have passed 
away since the samtly life of Thacher was closed by 
his triumphant death. A large elm has grown from 
the cellar of the house in which he died. All the men 



14 



and children whom his eyes looked upon have gone. 
Their children's children are among the generations 
that have passed away, and no tradition respectmg him, 
except m books, is preserved here in what was the 
field of his labors for almost half a century. But that 
death bed scene which I have presented in the dymg 
words of his friend — for his funeral sermon was the 
last sermon that Cotton Mather ever ]3reached — that 
victorious faith of his and of those who succeeded him — 
the mspiration and the fruits of many labors and 
prayers — lifting them above the world and leading 
them triumphantly on from thmgs seen and temporal to 
things unseen and eternal, they speak to us, not of the 
generations that pass away, but of joys and souls which 
endure forever. Like those good men we must die. 
Our very names may be forgotten when the next cen- 
tennial day shall be commemorated by those who come 
after us. All that our eyes now look upon will be 
nothing to us. Shall we not then by holy and faithful 
livmg, seek, like them, to secm-e for ourselves ever- 
lastuig habitations in the kmgdom of Christ. ■? 



SERMON. 



Mt son, hear the instruction of thy father, and for- 
sake NOT the law of thy MOTHER : FoR THEY SHALL BE 
AN ORNAMENT OF GRACE UNTO THY HEAD, AND CHAINS ABOUT 

THY NECK. Proverbs 1 : 8, 9. 

Last Simday I spoke of the social condition of this 
town in some of the more extended relations, and es- 
pecially of the church and its doctrines, illustrating the 
latter part of the subject by slight sketches of the three 
ministers who came within the first ceutiuy of our his- 
tory. 

I wish this morning to speak of some of our private 
and domestic relations. 'NMierever there are happy 
and wtuous homes, there, more than any where else, 
the great purposes of human society and of human life 
are accomplished. In these homes woman must ne- 
cessarily be the presidmg and tutelary genius. Not 
only the softerdng graces and accomplishments which 
adorn the character and lend theh charm to society 
come from her, but the hardier vu'tues, which defend 
the state and stay oif the streams of public corruption 
that are perpetually makmg ini'oads on private morals, 
find their insphation and support hi the trammg which 
the young man has fii'st received ui the home of his 
childhood. 



16 

The ablest philosophical writer of the present centu- 
ry on this class of subjects, Alexis de Tocqueville, 
[Democracy in America. Part Second, New York, 
1840,] after asserting [Chap, viii,] that " no free 
communities ever existed without morals," that " mor- 
als are the work of woman," and that all travellers 
who have visited North America, however they differ 
in other things, agree that morals are far more strict 
here than elsewhere, the Americans being m this re- 
spect very much superior to the English, concludes his 
remarks on this subject [Chap, xii, p. 227,] with this 
emphatic declaration : "I have nowhere seen women 
occupymg a loftier position ; and if I were asked, now 
that I am drawmg to the close of this work m which I 
have spoken of so many important things done by the 
Americans, to what the singular prosperity and grow- 
ing strength of that people ought mainly to be attribut- 
ed, I should reply — to the superiority of their wo- 
men." 

This remark of the ablest philosophical thmker and 
observer who has ever written on American society and 
institutions is miquestionably correct, and its truth may 
be verified in the history even of a little commiuiity 
like this. 

But if we attempt to go back more than a century, 
it is impossible to get at the details which are necessa- 
ry in order to an intelligent and satisfactory treatment 
of the subject. Examples of domestic vhtue live and 
reign withm their own limited sphere. In their ob- 
scure retreats, as m so many private laboratories, they 
mould the characters of the yomig, and thus prepare 
the forces which are to act on public institutions and 
laws. A young lad at school in Andover, eighty years 



17 

ago, saw a poor wretch, publicly whipped before the 
house m which he boarded. Other boys very likely 
regarded the suffering criminal with laughter and mock- 
ery. The lady of the house, Mrs. Phillips, whose hus- 
band was one of the founders of Phillips Academy, 
told this boy that if he lived to be a man and had any 
mfluence as a legislator, she hoped he woidd have that 
shameful and degrading punishment abolished. Very 
early m hfe the boy became a statesman, and one of 
his early acts was to have that blot erased from the 
statute book of his native State. 

The author of this act happened to be mentioned ; 
but in ninet}'-nine cases out of a hundred, she who has 
furnished the motive, and is really the originator of the 
beneficent step that is taken in the onward progress of 
the race, goes to her grave unrecognized as such by 
others, and without any suspicion m her own mind of 
the good that she has done. And the fact that it is 
woman's province thus to work in privacy, like a fah 
taper, as has been said, shuiing to all the room, but 
castmg a modest shadow around herself, — the fact that 
she should thus be the inspiration of so much that is 
good to others while she claims so little for herself, is 
one of the causes which give her such a hold on the 
affections and the admiration of men. 

But those, whose lives are thus spent, leave little for 
the historian to record. They are satisfied to live un- 
known beyond their own quiet sphere. What is best in 
them transfuses itself into those around them and lives 
on m their lives. The homes which they have filled 
and cheered with their presence feel that thek light 
has gone out when they die. Theh childi-en arise up 
3 



18 

and call them blessed. Grand children retain in their 
hearts some pleasant memorials of what they were, and 
perhaps always feel as if a mild and hallowed illumm- 
ation had passed out of their sky when they departed. 
But after that no record of what they were remams. 
The places which knew them and w^hich were dearer 
to them than to any one else, know them no more for- 
ever, and transmit to us no glimpse of the lives they 
lived, as distmguished from the lives of others. 

Hence it is impossible to illustrate what I wish to 
say by examples which do not come down pretty 
nearly to the memory of persons now livmg. Peter 
Thacher died a hundi-cd and thirty-five years ago ; and 
we have quite a distmct view of his character and life. 
Butof the wife of hisyouth, — "Mydear wife Theodora," 
as he calls her in the church records, — daughter of 
Rev. John Oxenbridge, of Boston, and the mother of 
nme children — we have scarcely any accomit beyond 
this inscription on her tomb stone : 

M^^ THEODORA THACHER Y DAUGHTER 
OF Y REV° jVF JOHN OXEXBRIDGE PASTOR 
OF Y FIRST CHURCH IN BOSTON & WIFE 
OF M^ PETER THACHER AGED 38 YEARS 
3 MONTHES 23 DAYES AVAS TRANSLATED 
FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN NOV^ Y 18 1697. 

We visit the houses that were built dm'uig the first 
centui'y after the settlement of the town. We see 
enough there to confute the idea which some entertain 
that those who built them were persons without taste or 



19 

culture. Almost without exception they occupy sites 
as pleasant as the town affords, and in thek position 
and architectural fuiish show a degree of skill and a del- 
icacy of taste which have hardly been exceeded m our 
day. Those who dwelt m them had many privations 
which we know nothing of. The hardships of thek 
lot bore, as they usually do in new settlements, mth 
unequal severity on the women. But they had then* 
delicacies and refhiements. On great occasions then- 
garments, which often lasted more than a lifetime, and 
w^ere handed dow^i as heir-looms from one generation 
to another, were of more costly materials, and made 
up with a more elaborate finish, than thek successors 
in the same walks of life now would indidge in. In 
thek social mtercourse they w^ere more dignified and 
stately than our customs would authorize. The differ- 
ent ranks of society and the tokens of respect due from 
one to another were more precisely marked out than 
in oiu- day. If the higher classes exacted more from 
those below them, they were ready to do more for 
them m return, and to defend them from the exactions 
or oppressions of the pow^erful. 

There is no picture of the past so attractive to me as 
that of a Christian home. In carrying om' thoughts 
back to the early settlers at times when every nerve 
was strained to meet the physical wants of the day, 
we see that there was always found a season, not only 
in the chm'ch for public worship, but at home for 
prayer and rehgious mstruction, and the cultivation of 
those inward graces which di-aw together the members 
of a household by something stronger than the ties of 
interest or habit, and throw over the openmg kitelli- 



20 

gence of the child visions more sacred and inspiring 
than the earth can give. In those visions of heavenly 
glory, those thoughts of near access and solemn ac- 
countability to God, the child's whole nature was 
bathed and made alive. They touched the inmost 
springs and motives of conduct, and moulded his views 
and habits of life. While the characters thus fash- 
ioned were to some extent marked by the severity 
which grew out of the theology of the age and the 
hardships to which the men were exposed, they were 
also filled with the tender sympathies and affections 
which are always cherished by a heartfelt intercourse 
with God, and which cannot be separated from the re- 
ligious nurture of a Christian home. 

In each of these homes, the presiding genius and 
divinity of the place was the Christian mother. She 
was the centre of kmdly mfluences and attractions. 
Out of door cares and toils tasked to the utmost the 
time and strength of the father. But she, not less 
heavily biu'dened with bodily labor, — even m her sor- 
rows perhaps findmg no leisure for grief, but work- 
ing, and weeping while she worked, — was always 
there, the dignit)' of her outward demeanor subdued 
by the solicitudes and yearnings which di'ew her to- 
wards her children. Amid the hardness which might 
have been caused by the severity of their creed, or the 
stern necessities which pressed upon them and hem- 
med them in, here was a never failing fomitam, open- 
mg within then- homes, and supplying them with the 
soft, sweet waters of domestic peace. The birth of a 
child was a new evangel, calling into exercise all the 
tenderness and strength of a mother's heart. Her self- 



21 

denying virtues, her conjugal affections, her intelligence, 
her faith, m itself the evidence of things not seen, and 
the deeper religion of theheart,were all employed in her 
domestic relations. "When my mother comes from her 
chamber where she has been praymg," said a yoimg 
man of rare intellectual and moral gifts, " her face is 
like the face of an angel." So has many a mother been 
glorified in the eyes of her children. 

And such were the mothers whom we love to look 
back upon as the pride and glory of the days that are 
gone. They, under God, formed the great men, who 
by their far seeing wisdom, theh strong wills, and sub- 
lime faith, were always equal to the emergencies of 
theh time, who elevated the tone of public morals, en- 
larged the mtelligcnce and strengthened the vhtues of 
the age m which they lived, and thus laid here, on this 
North American contuient, the foundations of a mighty 
empke, so deep and firm that neither the passions 
of wicked men nor the gates of hell shall prevail 
agamst it. 

It is the merciful infusion of domestic love and 
kmdness that saves men from becoming a race of 
infidels and savages. ISIan gladly accepts the aid of a 
natui-e more delicate than his own, more open to re- 
ligious impressions, and to the finer mfluences that are 
around us. While he seems to be the controllmg mmd, 
he willingly subjects himself to her finer instincts. In 
recognizing the origmal difi'erences of organization 
between the sexes, he joyfully acknowledges her su- 
periority in some thmgs, as he practically asserts his 
own superiority in others. By adjustmg itself to constitu- 
tional diversities, and seekmg harmony in variet}% gain- 



22 

ing mutual support by mutual submission and respect, 
society here in New England has done much, though 
much remams to be done, to make the position of 
woman honorable, and her influence what it should 
be. Relations thus mutually helpful, affections kept 
alive by acts of kmdness every day reciprocated, can- 
not be otherwise than blessed. The longer they con- 
tinue, the more alive they are. And when, after a 
long union, the comiection seems to be dissolved by 
death, then all the more touchmg is the pathos of the 
separation, and the stronger the assurance which the 
heart finds of a re-union. An ao-ed woman whom I 
knew, gazing tearfully on the face of her husband who 
had just ceased to breathe at the age of eighty-five or 
eighty-seven years, exclaimed, " O Billy, Billy, shall I 
never hear your voice again 1 We have lived togeth- 
er more than fifty years, and I never heard from you 
an unkind word." I was witli a man eighty-four years 
old who supposed himself to be, as he was, almost on 
the borders of eternity. " I would gladly die," he 
said, " if I could only be sure of meeting my wife " — 
who had died some years before — " and knowing her 
again." These are the feelings fostered by long lives 
of mutual fidelity and kindness in the dearest domestic 
relations. They give the assurance of peace and hap- 
piness on earth, and reach on m hope and love to that 
world where ties apparently broken here shall be 
united again. 

It would be easy to carry out this theme, with varia- 
tions, by examples drawn from those who have been 
trained and nurtured here. But I must allow myself a 
wider range. The happy influence of our homes , especial- 



23 

ly in the character of the women who have presided over 
them, or whom they have produced, are best ilhistrated 
by the examples which we have fomid in the sechision 
of domestic hfe. 

Near the Railway village, mider the shadow of an 
ancient elm, is a pleasant one story house with a gam- 
brel roof, where sixt}- years ago were seven sisters, 
who were all in due time educated in the usual branch- 
es of learnmg, all taught, as every yoimg woman should 
be, to support themselves by the work of their own 
hands. The only one now living among us is the old- 
est person belonging to this church, and, I think, the 
oldest person in Milton. All of them have been 
wives and mothers, and all but two have gone from 
their earthly labors, after havmg fulfilled with singu- 
lar fidelity the duties of a Christian wife and mother. 
One of them, the wife of an accomplished teacher, ex- 
ercised a happy and extended influence over the young, 
and of another the following words were written by Dr. 
Channing m a private letter soon after her death : 

" It was not necessary to see her often to know and 
love her. The simplicity, sweetness, delicacy, and 
purit}^ of her sphit shone out in her coiuitenance too 
brightly to be overlooked, even by a stranger. I re- 
member Vv^hen I was m three or four years 

ago I rode with — to visit her at her residence. 

It was after her husband's failiu*e, and to this misfor- 
tune had been added the sickness of her family, — I 
think intermittent fever, taken m an unhealthy spot, 
to which they had retreated after his losses. Here 
was an accumulation of calamity, and her frame bore 
the mark of exhaustmg labor. But a more lovely 



24 

manifestation of a resigned spirit I never witnessed. 
The tear trembled in her eye, as she told me of their 
trials ; but a sweet smile said in the most imequivocal 
language, — ' His will be done.' I had that mormng 
visited some choice paintmgs brought by a very opu- 
lent friend from Europe, which had given me much 
pleasiu'e ; but on returning to the carriage after my 
interview with your sister, I said, — I have seen and 
admked a great deal of beauty this morning, but in 
all those works of genius I have seen nothing so beau- 
tiful as the friend we have just left. That expression 

of s countenance remains with me, and it 

cheers and consoles me at this moment. There was 
somethmg heavenly m that spirit, and that cannot die." 
I wish to speak of another Milton woman whose ex- 
ample is worthy of all commendation. A little way 
from the spot where we are assembled, in a lane now 
closed, just this side of the Amory place, in a house of 
which no renmants remain, was born, one of five sisters. 
Miss Ann Bent, who died a few years ago at the age 
of eighty-nine. She began to support her father's fami- 
ly by teaching a school of little children on Milton Hill. 
Afterward she opened a shop in Boston where she 
supported herself many years, teaching other young 
women to do the same, and, in addition to the 
many kind and charitable acts in which she greatly 
delighted, she laid up an abundant competency 
for her old age. She numbered among her personal 
friends many of the most cultivated and excellent j)er- 
sons hi Boston. Her house was the unostentatious and 
attractive centre of a pleasant society of refined, re- 
ligious minded people. She always found occupation 



25 

for her benevolent sympathies. She lived a happy, 
useful, honored life amid the affections of others, and 
died lamented and beloved. Few persons among us 
have done more to enlarge the field of reputable in- 
dustry for woman, to show that she can be respected 
and happy without being married, that by her own ex- 
ertions she can create and support a home where, 
without the assistance of one bovmd by law to honor 
and provide for her, she may, down to the latest pe- 
riod of a long life, protect herself from injuries or neg- 
lect by her own vhtues and graces, and, without the 
hereditary homage of children and children's childi-en, 
find herself looked up to with increasmg respect, and 
cared for by mcreasmg affections which tmii fondly 
towards her, and gladly pay back, in acts of lovmg 
gratitude, the debt they owe. 

The fourth minister of this parish was Joseph 
McKean. He was born m Boston and ordained here at 
the early age of twenty-one. He was a man of miusual 
intellectual gil'ts, ardent, faithfid and imwearied. 
He sought the highest good of the town and church. 
But his activities were too large for his place and flow- 
ed over mto other departments. He entered with all 
the zeal of his energetic natui'e into the political con- 
tests of the day, and sometimes used his keen powers 
of ridicule and sarcasm m speakmg of parishioners 
who opposed him on political grounds. We owe to 
his laborious care the fact that we have left any rec- 
ord of the early doings of oiu- church. After an efficient 
and succesful, though somewhat troubled, ministry of 
seven years, he resigned his charge on account of im- 
pau-ed health. He took a voyage to the South. He 
4 



26 

preached a year or two very acceptably in Boston, 
Milton being still for the most part his home. He 
succeeded John Qumcy Adams as Professor of Rhet- 
oric and Oratory at Harvard College m 1809, and dis- 
charged the duties of his post there with signal ability 
and success till his death in 1818, at the age of forty- 
two. He was a man of marked miluence and charac- 
ter, to be remembered by those who knew him. I 
had some little acquamtance Avith his widow who 
survived him many years. She was a woman of sin- 
gular sweetness of nature, refined and gentle, thorough- 
ly feminine in all her qualities, devout, confiding, af- 
fectionate, and yet, if I mistake not, very firm in her 
couAicticns, and with a quiet resolution which was 
not easily turned aside from what she might thmk it 
her duty to undertake. She lived amid the devoted 
aflfections of her children and friends. 

I might speak of other women, in widely dififerent 
spheresof life, who were her contemporaries and friends 
here, and who illustrated in different ways some of the 
best characteristics of oiu' New England cultiu-e. 
There have been those among us whose freedom show- 
ed itself in pahiful excentricities. But there w^ ere a 
few living when I came here, whom I was glad to re- 
cognize as the honored survivors and representatives 
of a former generation. It was a priAilege to be with 
them, and to look on them as mediators and ambassa- 
dors to us from a former century. As beloved and 
venerated monuments of the past, they carried our 
thoughts back to a time of greater simplicit}^ m the 
habits of living, of a more courteous, and, I must add, 
a more attractive dignity of manners, as well as to a 



27 

time of severe duties and harder struggles than are 
common now. Through them we were permitted to 
recall the image of former days, to catch something of 
the delicate hue and perfume of those earher times, to 
converse of persons whose characters were formed be- 
fore oiu- country had yet an independent place or name 
among the nations, to dwell with them amid the vir- 
tues which made those days illustrious, and to admu-e 
in them the calm dignity which comes from a true 
elevation of mind and heart, and a com-tesy which m 
its own Chi'istian self respect never forgot what was 
due to the feelmgs and the self respect of others. But 
I must not single them out one by one, and dwell up- 
on theu' memory as I should be glad to do for om- sake 
more than for theirs. 

Yes, these homes have been inhabited, these fields 
have been frequented, these roads have been travelled 
by those whom it is a joy and a privilege to remember, — 
women who made the atmosphere in which they lived 
fragrant with their afiections, then* prayers, and theu' 
graceful and gracious deeds. Some have just begmi 
to reveal to us the beautiful promise of what they might 
be and have passed away, leaving with us only the 
pleasant vision of a loveliness on which the bloom and 
freshness of a perpetual youth will linger in om- 
thoughts till we meet them above in all the radiance 
of theu- celestial bemg. Others have gone from us iii 
the mellowness of a ripened old age. Others again, 
and among them some of the finest specimens of wo- 
manhood that we have known, went away in the ful- 
ness of all their powers. 

One of these I will mention, because not only she, 



28 

but every member of her household is gone. She was 
a child of this town, born to affluence, the child of her 
father's old age and the favored object of his indul- 
gence, — early a member of this church — a faithful 
pains-takmg teacher in our Sunday school, and grate- 
fully remembered as such by pupils whose grateful re- 
membrance is indeed a benediction — a wife and a 
mother with everythmg apparently that this world has 
to give at her command — gi^'ing and receiviug the 
most constant and devoted acts of love and kindness — 
then watching the failing health of the one dearest to 
her, with anxious solicitude — " bereft of light " — a 
widow, folio whig first a child and then a mother to the 
grave. Yet she lived on, walked abroad amid objects 
dear to her, but seeing them only in her thoughts. 
She loved, as few persons have, every thhig belonging 
to this town — its hills, its streams and meadows, its 
trees and its people — taking a kindly mterest in every 
thing that occurred, her sympathies confined to no one 
class, glad to do what she might for all. When she died, 
the light of hope and love shone more dimly in many 
a home and heart which she had cheered by the gen- 
tle illumination of her sympathy and kindness. And 
now not one of all her household lives on earth. At 
the close of this second century, as we bind our wreaths 
of lovmg remembrance and lay them softly on the 
tombs of those who have been our friends and bene- 
factors, who have meekly fulfilled the duties of life 
and passed on where they rest from theu' labors and 
thek works do follow them, we may bind up this 
frail memorial of personal respect and gratitude, and lay 
it on a grave which no descendant of hers shall ever visit. 



29 



Yes, tender and hallowed memories gather round 
us as we look back through these completed centuries. 
To you it is one thing ; to me who came recently 
among you it is another. Yet to all of us it is the 
same. Dear forms, no longer among the living, come 
thronging back to us. Dear lives, which have 
vanished wholly from sight, but whose sweetness lin- 
gers still in our hearts, revive again, and give us anew 
their holy benison. So may this season of commemora- 
tion touch all our hearts, draw us on to more holy and 
faithful living, till Ave too shall join that silent com- 
pany of God's elect, and be numbered with them among 
the saints in glory. 



]sr o T k; s 



THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH IN MILTON. 

The CJiurch in Milton was gathered April 24, 1678. The Covenant then 
entered into was signed by the following names. 

ANTHONY NEWTON, EBENEZER CLAP, 

ROBERT TUCIvER, EDWARD BLACKE, 

WILLIAM BLACKE, GEORGE LION, 

THOMAS SWIFT, JAMES TUCKER, 

GEORGE SUMNER, EPHRAIM TUCKER, 

THOMAS HOLMAN, -^ MANASSAH TUCKER, 

On Sunday, the eighth of May, 1681, Mr. Peter Thacher, who had been in- 
vited to become the pastor of the church and town, after the exercises of the 
Sabbath, read to the church and congregation his reply accepting their call, 
on these conditions : 

"1. So long as you continue one amongst yourselves and for me all due 
means being used or tendred for hearing in case of differance." 

" 2. So long as I may enjoy the liberty of my judgment according to scripture 
rule." 

" 3, So long as you subject yourselves and yours to the ordinances and offi- 
cers of this church." 

" 4. So long as I may follow my studdys without distraction ; and provide 
for myself and family according to the rules of God's word," &c., &c. 

Among the first entries of members admitted to the church, in Mr. Thacher's 
handwriting, are the following : 

"4 April, 1681. Peter Thacher by a letter of dismission from the third church 
in Boston, was admitted." 

"June 1, 1681. Peter Thacher, [though unworthy,] was ordained Pastor of 
tiie church of Milton." 

"Oct. 2, 1681. My dear wife Theodora Thacher was admitted into full com- 
munion makeing a relation." 

Mr. Thacher had removed his family to Milton before making up his mind to 
settle here. In his letter, or rather address of acceptance, he says ; " 1 was 
persuaded so far to comply with all as to remove myself and my family to this 
place, that so I might the more clearly discern and faithfully follow divineguidance 



32 

and direction in my future settlement amongst you or remove from you, accord- 
ing as God should unite the harts of the church and congregation unto me and 
mine and ours unto you, or otherwise dispose." He had hesitated long before 
accepting the invitation, not only from a sense of his " own deep unworthiness" 
and " great unfitness " for the work of the ministry, " but especially in this 
place," he adds, " in respect of those lamentable animosityes and divisions 
which have been in this place, which hath occasioned your unsettlement until 
now, which the Lord for his own name sake pardon, and prevent for the future " 
His prayer seems to have been answered ; for the aifairs of the society seem 
to have been favored with an extraordinary degree of harmony for more than a 
hundred years from that time. 

I copy a few items from the Church Records which may seem a little strange 
to us in these days. 

*' Nov. 21, 1695. Samuel, the son of George Sumner was baptized. This 

George was Left'nt G. S. eldest sou, and this day hee did explicileiy renew his 

s 
covenant with God and y Chh. 

" Aug. 10, 1701. Margaret, my Indian maid joyued hers, to the Lord in a per- 

8 

petuall covenant was taken under the watch and discipline of y Chh. by a Chh. 

vote and so was baptized." ^^ 

W 
Feb. 1, 1718-9. Hagar my negro woman made her confession of her sin — 

e 
and entered into covenant with God and came under y watch and discipline of 

this Chh. and so was baptized and her children Sambo and Jimme were bap- 
tized at the same time." 

" June 1727. Content Marah was baptized Hannah she requesting that her 

name might be changed " 

c e 

"July 1, 1683. Henry Craine Seni'r rec'd, w was y first time I went 

abroad after my great sicknesse." 

The last entry made by Mr. Thacher in the church records is as follows : 

e 
" Dec. 10, 1727. George y son of Mr. Georg Badcock was baptized." 

" Item.William the son of Mr. William Peirce was baptized, Dec. 10, 1727." 
The next entry is the following, apparently in the handwriting of his succes- 
sor : 

" The Rev'd Mr. PeteriThacher (after above 46 years eminent service in the 

e 
Ministerial oflace in the town of Milton,) died on y 17th of Dec'r 1727. Bless- 

t 
ed are the dead y die in the Lord." 

Rev. John Taylor was ordained Nov. 13, 1728. The following entry in his 
handwriting is found immediately under the original Covenant of the church. 

" Dea. Manasseh Tucker (who was the last Survivour of the first set of Ch. 
Members) died April 9th, 1743. 

*'And as all that generation were gathered to their fathers, the church'passed 



33 



a vote (April 17) that they would renew Covenant with God and one another ; 
which they did accordingly, April 24lh, when the members of the Ch. Male and 
Female, manifested their consents to their Fathers Covenant by standing up 
while I read it over with a small variation as the change of circumstances re- 
quired. J. T." 

The last entry made by Mr. Taylor in the church records, is among the bap- 
tisms, " Dec. 31, [1750,] Hephsibah, Daught. of Enoch Horton," and imme- 
diately below it is the following : 

" The Rev'd Mr. John Taylor, after above 21 Years eminent Service in the 
e e 

Ministerial Office in y town of Milton, Died on y 26th Day of January, 1749-50. 

e 
Blessed and forever happy are they wch die in y Lord as well as those wch 

e 
die for y Lord." 

Rev. Nathaniel Robbins was ordained Feb. 13, 1751. 

He died May 19, 1795. The sermon at his funeral was preached by Rev. 
Jason Haven of Dedham. The Sunday following, a sermon which was after- 
wards printed, was preached by Rev. Thomas Thacher. 

At a meeting, after divine services, June 19, 1796, the Church voted unani- 
mously to invite Mr. John Pierce to become their Pastor. But the town did 
not concur with the Church. Mr. Pierce was afterwards the venerable and be- 
loved Dr. Pierce of Brookline, where he sustained the relation of Pastor more 
than fifty years. 

By one of the coincidences which Dr. Pierce loved to recognize, it so happened 
that he preached his last sermons here in the same church which had witnessed 
with warm approval his earliest labors in the sacred profession A glory pass- 
ed away from our ministerial gatherings and from the Harvard College Com- 
mencements when his portly form, his benignant countenance, his white locks, 
his sonorous voice, and the pleasant contagion of his perpetual cheerfulness, 
had ceased from among us. 

Rev. JosephMcKean was ordained Nov. 1, 1797. "Separated, at his proposal, 
on account of feeble health, and want of support, Oct. 3, 1804." 

Rev. Samuel Gile was ordained Feb. 18, 1807. The latest entry in the 
church records which I find in his hand writing is Aug. 16, 1834, to record the 
death of Mrs. Abigail Swift, aged 76. 

On account of difficulties about exchanges, which grew out of differences of 
opinion on doctrinal points, Mr. Gile's connection with the society was dissolved 
Jan. 6, 1834, through an Ex-parte Council called by the society, and composed 
of the following clergymen. Rev. Peter Whitney of Q,uincy, Rev. John White 
of West Dedham, Rev. Alvan Lamson, Dedham, Rev. James Walker, Charles- 
town, Rev. Lemuel Capen, South Boston, Rev. Samuel Barret, Boston. 

Those of the parish who agreed with Mr. Gile in sentiment or who were 
drawn to him by a strong personal attachment formed a new society under the 
name of " The First Evangelical Society." He continued with them in the 
Ministerial office till the day of his death, Sunday, Oct. 16, 1836. He had 

5 



34 

preached in the morning, and when the congregation came together in the after- 
noon they heard of his sudden death during the intermission. Mr. Gile was a 
man of respectable abilities with a remarkable gift in pr:iyer. He was beloved 
by his people, and at the time of the division in the parish, there was as little 
ill feeling as there ever is in such a separation, and he lived and died respected 
even by those who had felt it to be their duty to vote for his dismission. His 
widow lived till after these sermons were delivered, an object of tender regard 
to all who knew her, and looking with almost equal kindness upon all the fam- 
ilies which had once been under her husband's ministry. She felt towards 
them all as a mother towards her shildren, and when she died, June 26, !862, 
the remembrance of the life which she had led among them for more than fifty 
years, could awaken in those who had known her no other feeling than one of 
grateful and affectionate respect. 

For nearly thirty years the two societies have held their meetings side by 
side, the church bells mingling together the sounds which call their respective 
worshipers to the house of prayer. They have labored, each in its own way 
and according to its own convictions, to do in this community the work which 
devolves on Christian societies. And if there have been any difficulties between 
them, or between their ministers, I have had no knowledge of it. If they have not 
worked together, they have worked in peace, — on one side, I am sure, and, I 
believe also, on the other, with sentiments of cordial good will. " Pray for the 
peace of Jerusalem : they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy 
walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions 
sakes, I will now say, peace be within thee." 

Rev. Benjamin Huntoon, having been unanimously called, was installed Pas- 
tor of the First Congregational Church and Society, Oct 15, 1834. 

Introductory Prayer and reading Scriptures by Rev. George Putnam, of Rox- 
bury. Prayer of Installation by Rev Peter Whitney of Quincy. Sermon by 
Rev Thaddeus Mason Harris, D. D. of Dorchester. Charge by Rev. John 
Pierpoint of Boston. Right Hand of Fellowship by Rev. Francis Cunningham of 
Dorchester. Address to the People by Rev. Henry Ware, jr. D. D. of Cambridge. 
Concluding Prayer by Rev. John White of West Dedham. 

Dec. 9lh, 1835, " The old church having been turned round and thoroughly 
repaired, was reopened and dedicated to the service and worship of Almighty 
God. Rev. William P. Lunt of Quincy, and Rev. Orestes Brownson of Can- 
ton assisted Mr. Huntoon in the services. 

Mr. Huntoon's connection with the society was dissolved at his own request, 
June 20, 1837, on account of his health, and that he might take charge of the 
Unitarian Society in Cincinnati. Mr. Huntoon went from Milton to Cincinnati ; 
Rev. Ephraim Peabody from Cincinnati to New Bedford, and Rev. Joseph Angier 
from New Bedford to Milton. 

Rev. Joseph Angier was invited to become pastor of the society by a unani- 
mous vote, Aug. 7, 1837, and was installed Sept. 13, 1837, Rev. Caleb Stetson 
of Medford preaching the sermon. At his own request, and against the wishes of 
the people, Mr. Angler's connection with the society was dissolved June 22, 1845. 



35 

The present pastor, John H. Morison, was installed Jan. 28, 1846. 

From the first settlement of the town, notwithstanding the good Peter Thach- 
er's fears about " the lamentable animosities and divisions, which has been 
in this.place," the most remarkable feature in the history of the parish has been 
the harmony between the ministers and their people. From the time when the 
Call was given to Mr. Thacher in 1680 down to the present day, so far as the 
parish records show, there has been, with the single exception already men- 
tioned, no difficulty between the minister and the parish. Mr. McKean and 
Mr. Gile were both settled by a unanimous vote of the Church. Every minis- 
ter settled here since the division of the town has received a unanimous invita- 
tion from the parish, and when the connection has been dissolved it has been 
at the request of the Pastor and against the wishes of the Society. 

It would be unjust to close this notice of the parish without speaking of the 
Sunday School to which it has owed no small part of its prosperity, For twenty 
years it was under the judicious care of Mr. Samuel Adams, who spared no labor 
or expense in its behalf, and who during those twenty years was only twice ab- 
sent from his post at the opening of the services. He knew all the children of the 
parish. He visited the homes of the poor, supplied their wants, and from places 
too often neglected or forgotten, drew in children who would otherwise have 
been left to go astray. Those who were then connected with the school are 
not likely ever to forget their obligations to him. 

The first Meeting House in Milton, I believe, stood near the place where Miss 
Polly Crane lived nearly ninety years of her long life, and where Mr. Wm. P. 
Blanchard now resides. The present Church was built in 1787. It was turn- 
ed round in 1834, when the galleries were removed and a part of the building 
partitioned off as a Sunday School room. In 1851, the partition was removed 
so as to make room for twenty additional pews, and a new room was added for 
the Sunday School. At about the same time an organ was procured. 

There are few finer situations for a country church, and the original advant- 
ages of the place have been greatly improved by the noble trees that stand up- 
on it. About seventy years ago, at a town meeting, a number of young men 
agreed to spend the next day in setting out trees. They kept their engagement, 
and the fine elms which stand around the church with their hospitable shade 
and coolness through the summer months, and as holy sentinels amid the storms 
of winter, remain still the fruit of that one day's work, an emblem and memo- 
rial of the enduring results which may sometimes come from our transient ex- 
ertions. This fact was told me by the late Gen. Moses Whitney, the last sur- 
vivor of the company who transplanted the trees. Their names should be kept 
in lasting and pleasant remembrance. 

ANCIENT HOUSES AND ESTATES. 

I can make out but five families who live now on land taken by their ances- 
tors at the first settlement of the place. The widow of John Crehore holds a 
part of the original Crehore estate. The heirs of Simon and Rhoda [Kingsbury 
Sumner] Ferry live on land owned by their ancestors, the Sumners, from the 



36 

beginning. Mr. Uufus P. Sumner cultivates, as his homestead, land which has 
been in his family from the earliest period of our history. The grandfather of 
the Hon. Charles Sumner was born and lived on some part of this Brush Hill 
Sumner estate. The Wadsworths, Jason, Thomas Thacher and Josiah, Jive on 
land which has never been out of the hands of their ancestors since it was first 
cultivated. The heirs of the late Col. Josiah H. Vose still occupy the place 
which has been owned by their family since 1654. And heirs of the late Mrs. 
Mary Boies Clark not only live on land owned by their ancestor, Robert Tuck- 
er, the first of the name in Milton, but it is probable that they live in the very 
house that he built a short time before his death. In his will made in 1682, he 
speaks of his " new house," and if that, as Mr. Robbins thinks, is the house 
now standing next beyond the Robbins house on Brush Hill, it must have been 
built as early as 1680, and is undoubtedly the oldest house in Milton. Next to 
it in a"e, and of a date not much more recent, is the Billings house. Both 
these houses are of a primitive order of architecture, and evidently belong to a 
period when building materials were plenty and labor was scarce. The Billings 
house continued in that family for many generations. Mr. William Crehore, 
whose mother was a Billings, and to whom I am indebted for many facts relat- 
ing to our history, was born in this house more than 80 years ago, and at a 
much more recent period it was the birth-place of the distinguished architect, 
Mr. Charles Howland Hammatt Billings, son of Ebenezer Billings. The house 
was widely known as a public house before the beginning of ihe present century, 
and was a favorite place of resort, especially at the cherry and strawberry sea- 
son, for parties from Boston and the neighboring towns. The Blue Hills were 
much more visited in those days than now, when the summit of Mount Wash- 
ington is hardly a day's journey from Boston. 

The other ancient houses in Milton belong to a later period and to a much 
higher style of architecture. The Foye house, now occupied by Mr. Samuel 
Littlefield, the Hutchinson house, better known to the present generation as the 
Russell house, the Inman or Robbins house on Brush Hill, the Taylor house, 
between the two (-.hurches, and the Gov. Belcher place (his house was burned 
in 1776,) are not only in themselves among the finest places in this neighborhood, 
but they have also associations of historical interest. Gov. Hutchinson's house, 
as Mr. Robbins informs me, was confiscated after he fled from the country. It 
was purchased by Samuel Broom, and, passing from his hands, became the 
residence of James Warren, whose wife, Mercy Warren, was the author of a 
valuable history of our revolutionary war. Thomas Lee of Cambridge owned it 
for a little while, and sold it to Patrick Jeffrey who had married Madam Haley, 
a sister of the noted John Wilkes of England. Jeffrey's wife left him, and he 
died at his house in Milton, in 1812 The estate was afterwards purchased by 
Mr. Barney Smith, and is now owned by his grandchildren, the heirs of his 
daughter, the late Mrs. Lydia S. Russell, widow of the Hon. Jonathan Russell. 

Maj. General Edwin Vose Sumner, [see p. 6,] son of EJisha and Nancy 
[Vose] Sumner, was born in Boston where his father resided a few years But 



37 

both his parents were natives of Milton to which they returned while he was yet a 
child They lived in the house now occupied by Miss Kendall on the right hand 
side of the Canton road, next beyond the lane that leads to the top of Brush IIill. 

OFFICERS NOW IN THE WAR. 

The following officers from Milton are now actively engaged in the 
war Those who know them best have the least apprehension that they will 
brin.^ any thing but honor to the town or to the august Hud sacred cause to 
which they are giving themselves. And the same may be said of many of our 
yovLW men who have gone as privates. 

Le°wis N. Tucker, Capt. Co. A. 18th Reg. Mass. Volunteers. John E. 
White Capt. Co. G. 99th Reg. N Y. Volunteers. Algernon S. Badger, Ut 
Lieutenant, Co. I. 26th Keg, Mass. Volunteers. Walter S. Davis, 1st Lieu- 
tenant, Co. F. 22d Reg. Mass. Volunteers. William II. Forbes, 1st Lieutenant, 
1st Reg. Mass. Cavalry. Stephen G. Perkins, 1st. Lieutenant, Co. IL 2d^Re- 
giment! Mass Volunteers. Edward S. Huntington, 2d Lieutenant, llth U- S. 

Infantry. r- d i • 

Since the above was written, one of these young men, Stephen G. Perkins, 
has fallen in battle at Cedar Mountain. He was one of the finest examples that 
I have known of manly integrity, and purity of heart It would not be easy to 
find a man who had less taste for the excitement, the glory, or the pursuits of 
war He went not from impulse, but from a deliberate sense of duly. His 
thou-ht had always been more for others than for himself. He was reserved and 
undemonstrative in his manners. His actions were better than his words, but 
his character was greater and better than either. He grew upon his associates 
from day to day, till he became in himself an influence among them, so that 
they felt, as one of them expressed it, that they must all have higher purposes 
of life, because they had lived with him. His eye was as clear as the eye of 
an infant, and every morning found him apparently as new and fresh as if he 
bad just been made. 

" Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart : 
* * * * and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself did lay." 

It is a great price that we are paying for our civil rights, but the institutions 
which produce such men are worth defending .at any cost, and the country 
which has such young men to give is worth dying for. 

Lieutenant Perkins was the son of Stephen H. Perkins, and grandson of 
Samuel G. Perkins. His mother was the daughter of Richard Sullivan. He 
was graduated at Harvard College in 1856, and at first studied law. But some 
things in the practice of the law offended his sensitive moral nature, and he 
entered the Scientific School at Cambridge, where he had just completed the 
course and taken his degree, when he went off to join the 2d Mass. Regiment. 

PETER TH ACHER. 

Peter Thacher, son of Rev. Thomas Thacher, first minister of the Old South 
Church in Boston, according to Dr. Sprague, Annals of American Pulpit 1. p. 



38 

196, was born in Salem, in the year 1651. His mother was a daughter of Rev. 
Ralph Partridge of Duxbury. He was graduated at Harvard College, in 1671, 
where he was the classmate and friend of the first Chief Justice Sewa!!. He 
was a tutor at Cambridge several years, and instructed the class of which Cot- 
ton Mather was a member. He became the intimate friend of his classmate 
and fellow tutor, Samuel Danforth, son of the Deputy Governor, whom he ac- 
companied to England, soon after leaving college. While in England he was 
strongly urged to join the Established Church, and tempting offers were 
made to him. But after careful investigation, his mind was made up against the 
claims of the church of England, and soon after the death of his friend, Mr. 
Danforth, near the end of 1676, he returned home. See Savage's Genealogi- 
cal Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 272. "He married," says Mr. Savage, "21st Nov., 
1677, Theodora, daughter of Rev. John Oxenbridge of the First Church, which 
had eight years before been in fierce enmity with the third church founded for 
his father, and so, I hope, some help was given to the quiet that began, soon 
after the death of Gov. Bellingham, to reign through the colony so long dis- 
turbed." They had nine children, only three of whom survived their father. 
She died 18th Nov. 1697, and he, for his second wife, married Susannah, 
widow of Rev. John Bailey, assistant minister at the First Church, Boston. 
They had one child who died in infancy. She died 4lh Sept., 1724, in her 59tii 
year. In 1727, about three months before his death, he married Elizabeth, 
daughter of Judah Thacher, and widow of the first Joshua Gee, and not of Rev. 
Joshua Gee, who, Mr. Savage says, survived him by many years. Peter 
Thacher, according to the Church records, was ordained in Milton, 1st June, 
1681, and died I7th Dec, 1727. The_funeral sermon by Cotton Mather is a 
beautiful discourse, and the title is as follows : 

"The comfortable chambers opened and visited, upon the departure of that 
aged and faithful servant of God, Mr. Peter Thacher, the never to be forgotten 
pastor of Milton, who made his flight thither, on December 17, 1727." 

The Boston Weekly Journal of 23d Dec, 1727, thus speaks of him : "He 
was a person of eminent sanctity, of a most courteous and complaisant behavior; 
cheerful, affable, humble and free of speech to the meanest he met with. He 
had a great deal of vivacity in his natural genius, which, being tempered with 
grace and wisdom, appeared very engaging both in his common converse and 
public performances. In his ordinary conversation there was a vein of piety, 
agreeably mingled with entertaining turns and passages, an air of freedom and 
cheerfulness, that made it very easy and pleasant in any company. * * He 
was a zealous asserter of the purity and liberty of our evangelical churches." 

Peter Thacher's daughter Theodora, who was admitted to the Church in 
Milton, Feb. 2, 1701, married Capt Jonathan Gulliver, and died Dec. 7, 1732. 
The following is from Mr. Thacher's Church Records : " March 23, 1700 or 
1701. Son Oxenbridge, Daughter Elizabeth, Mercy and Mary Badcock were 
admitted into full communion with the church in Milton." His son, Peter 
Thacher joined the church, Feb. 6, 1704. Oxenbridge was born in Milton, May 
17, 1681, and was graduated at Harvard College, 1698. In 1713-4 he married 



39 

Elizabeth Lillie, sister of Sir Charles Hobble. She died Nov. 3, 1736, aged 61 . 
He married (2) Bathsheba Kent, widow of .Tohn, July 30, 1740. In 1737 he 
was residing in Boston, as at that time he was di-smissed from the church in 
Milton, and '"recominended to Dr. Sewal's Church in Boston." I do not know 
how long he continued in Boston, but he spent the last years of his life in Milton, 
where he died, Oct. 29, 1772, at the great age of 91 years, 5 months, and 12 
days. He must long have been the patriarch of the town. 

His son Oxenbridge, grandson of Rev. Peter Thacher, was a man of extra- 
ordinary influence and ability. He was graduated at Harvard College in 1738, 
and for many years no man in Boston held a higher place at the bar. He en- 
tered with all his heart into the contest with England, and was associated with 
James Otis and John and Samuel Adams in the discussions with which that 
contest began. He died however in 1765, ten years before the war had actu- 
ally broken out. John Adams gives the following vivid sketch of him. " From 
1758 to 1765. I attended every superior and inferior court in Boston, and recol- 
lect not one in which he did not invite me home to spend evenings with him. 
when he made me converse with him as well as I could on all subjects of re- 
ligion, mythology, cosmogony, metaphysics, Locke, Clarke, Leibnitz, Boling- 

broke, Berkley, — the preestablished harmony of the universe, the nature of 
matter and of spirit, and the eternal establishment of coincidences between 
their operations, fate, foreknowledge, knowledge absolute, — and we rea- 
soned on such unfathoinable subjects, as high as Milton's gentry in pandemo- 
nium ; and we understood them as well as they did, and no better. But his 
favorite subject was politics, and the impending threatening system of parlin- 
mentary taxation, and universal government over the colonies. On this subject 
he was so anxious and agitated, that I have no doubt it occasioned his prema- 
ture death." 

The second Oxenbridge Thacher married Sarah Kent, probably the daughter 
of his step-mother, July 27, 1741, and had eight children. Of these, two 
entered the ministry and were greatly distinguished in their day; viz. Peter, 
born in Milton, where he was baptized, March 15, 1752, and Thomas. Peter 
was graduated at H. C, 1769. He was first settled in Maiden, and in Jan- 
uary, 1785, was settled over the Brattle Street Church in Boston, and was 
greatly distinguished for his personal virtues and his persuasive eloquence. His 
brother Thomas (H. C. 1775) was the minister of West Dedham, and was 
never married. He was an eccentric, able man, and used to say, " I Iciiow, 
brother Peter excels me in prayer, but I can give the best sermons." Peter 
was made a D. D. by the University of Edinburg, and died in Savannah, Ga., 
in the autumn of 1802. October 8, 1770, he married the widow Elizabeth 
Pool, and had ten children. His son, Thomas Cushing, was the minister of 
Lynn. Another son, Peter Oxenbridge, was a judge of the Boston Municipal 
Court. ' ' h\ the difficult and often critical exercise of the powers entrusted to 
hun," says President Q,uincy, " he upheld the dignity of his office, and main- 
tained the cause of justice with a fearless and discriminating spirit." A 
younger son, Samuel Cooper, the successor of Rev. John T. Kirkland as pastor 



40 



of the New South Church, in Boston, May, 1811, the intimate friend of Buck- 
minster and Channing, was a man greatly heloved and honored. He died at 
Moulins, in France, January 2, 1818, and his body now rests, with that of his 
father, in the burying-ground in Milton. A beautiful Memoir of his life was 
written by his friend and successor in the ministry. Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood. 
I remember another descendent of our Peter Thacher, who deserves to be 
mentioned here as a most worthy minister. Rev. William Vincent Thacher 
(H. C. 1834.) was a minister in Savannah, Ga., for a short time, and gained 
the entire confidence of those who knew him. He died on his passage from 
Savannah to Boston, in 1839. He, too, I think, is buried with many of his 
family, in our Milton grave-yard. 

JOHN TAYLOR. 

John Winslow, of Plymouth, born in 1597, the son of Edward Winslow, of 
England, and brother of the distinguished Edward Winslow of Plymouth, came 
to Plymouth in the Fortune, 1623, and in 1627 married Mary, daughter of 
James Chilton. There is a family tradition that she was the first person of 
English parentage who landed in the expedition to Plymouth ; she having 
leaped from the boat and waded ashore. This tradition was written down in 
1T69, from the lips of her grand-daughter, Ann [Winslow] Taylor, then in her 
92nd year. Their son Edward Winslow, by his second wife, Elizabeth, (d. of 
the second Edward Hutchinson and his wife, Catharine Ham by, d. of a lawyer 
at Fpswich, Eng.,) had, among other children, Ann, born Aug. 7, 1678, who 
married John Taylor, and was the mother of Rev. John Taylor, the minister 
of Milton. Of John, the father, who died in Jamaica, nothing is known except 
that he was the son of Richard Taylor, of Boston, who joined the church Jan. 
1, 1642, being then "a single man and a tailor." Richard, by liis wife Mary, 
had John, born the 2nd, baptized the 6th of February, 1647, and died in 1673. 
Having sustained a good character in life, he was lamented in death. " He," 
says his daughter-in-law, "bequeathed two handsome legacies to the old 
Brick and Old South Churches in Boston." 

The Rev. John Taylor, of Milton, was born in 1703, and was graduated at 
Harvard College in 1721, being the class-mate of Chief-Justice Stephen Sew- 
all, as his predecessor, Peter Thacher, had been the class-mate of C. J. Sam'l 
Sewall, fifty years before. He was ordained in Milton, Nov. 13, 1728, Rev. 
Thomas Foxcraft, of Boston, preaching the sermon ; and died Jan. 26, 1750. 
One of his daughters married Nicholas Gilman, of Exeter, N. H., and was the 
mother of John Taylor Gilman, a man of sound judgment and massive integrity 
of character, who was 13 years governor of N. H. Her son Nicholas Gilman 
was a Senator in Congress, a man of great personal influence, and an accom- 
plished gentleman. Her son Nathaniel Gilman was also a man widely known 
and respected. This family of Gilmans has been one of the most distinguished 
families in N. H. 

Rev. John Taylor built the pleasant house, which now stands between the 
two churches in Milton, and which is occupied by Capt. Charles Taylor, 



41 

and liis sisters, whose mother, Mrs. Mary 'J'iiylor, who lived in this house til\ 
her death, March 16, 18()0, aged 89, was the widow of William Taylor, the 
son of that William Taylor who was the nephew of the minister and wrote 
down his grandmother's words. She retained her faculties to the last, and 
was ahle to tell more about what had taken place here during the last eighty 
years than any other person that I knew. Her memory of things was very 
exact and vivid. She had a sound, discriminating mind, and was of a retiring, 
modest disposition. There was a quiet dignity about her whicli was very pleas- 
ing. She was one of the finest representatives among us of a generation which 
has now passed away. 

As to the tradition respecting Mary Chilton, the words given below were 
written down by William Taylor, in September, 1769, "as related," he says, 
" by my grandmother. Madam Ann Winslow," who was born the 7th of Aug. 
and baptized the 8th of Dec, 167t<, which was the year before Mary [ChiitonJ 
Wmslow died, and only 58 years after the landing at Plymouth. Ann Wins- 
low's mother, Elizabeth Hutchinson, was born in 1639. She was forty years 
the contemporary of Mary Chilton, and for ten years, at least, her daughter-in- 
law; so that Ann Winslow had abundant means of learning whether the story 
was true or not. Mr. Savage says in regard to it, Genealogical Die, IV., p. 
601 : " She [Mary Chilton] had come in the Mayflower, and in her favor cir- 
culates the ridiculous tradition that she was the first of English parentage that 
leapt on Plymouth Rock ; but the worthless glory is equally well or ill claimed 
for John Alden, for neither of them is entitled to that merit." I agree with 
Mr. Savage as to the value of the glory. But it will be seen that the family 
tradition is not that she first " leapt on Plymouth Rock." Mr. Taylor's 
memoranda of what his grandmother said is as follows : " She [Mary Chilton] 
came over with her father and mother and other adventurers to this new settle- 
ment. One thing worthy of notice is that her curiosity of being first on the 
North American strand, prompted her, like a young heroine, to leap out of the 
boat and wade ashore. John Winslow, another early adventurer, married said 
Mary Chilton, from whom have descended a numerous and respectable poster- 
ity. My grandmother, now living, who affords me these memou's, is the last 
surviving grandchild, in the 92nd year of her age." 

REV. NATHANIEL ROBBINS. 

Stories are still told which show the easy and familiar terms on which Mr. 
Robbins lived with his people, and their friendly relations to him. From 1770 
to 1785, or even later, was a period of great privation and distress among our 
people. At no time since the first years of the Plymouth Colony has the con- 
dition of the ministry been more circumscribed and embarrassing. For exam- 
ple. Rev. Samuel West, D. D., of the second precinct in Dartmouth, now 
New Bedford and Fair Haven, was one of the ablest and most faithful ministers 
of that generation. But in January, 1779, in consequence of representations 
from persons " of undoubted veracity, that the circumstances" of Mr. West 
" were in such a degree deplorable as to demand immediate relief," a meet- 

6 



42 



ing of the precinct was called, and it was voted to raise seventy pounds to 
procure fire-wood and corn for Mr. West. In most of the country parishes 
throughout New England there was the same distress, growing out of the 
depreciated and disordered state of the currency, and the disturbed condition 
of the country. Mr. Robbins was too skillful a farmer to be reduced to such 
straits as many of his brethren were, but the voluntary contributions of his 
parishioners, in those trying times, must have formed no unimportant part of 
his income from the parish. Mr. Robbins's son, Edward Hutchinson Robbins, 
Lieut. Governor of Massachusetts, and many years Judge of Probate for Nor- 
folk County, during the latter years of the last century and the first quarter of 
this, exercised a more important influence in this town than any other man. 
His death is thus mentioned in our Church Records : " Dec. 29, 1829, Hon. 
E. H. Robbins. The eldest son of the late Rev. Nath'l Robbins. A great man 
has fallen in our Israel." 

REV. JOSEPH McKEAN. 

In strength of mind, in earnestness of purpose, in intellectual accomplish- 
ments, in a high sense of honor and of duty, Mr. McKean was certainly infe- 
rior to no one of the honored men who preceded or followed him in the ministry 
here. But he came here very young. Our national government was not yet 
fairly embarked. The cries of party warfare were for the first time fiercely 
assailing it, and he tlu-ew himself into its defence with all the ardor of a gener- 
ous and inexperienced youth. He was greatly beloved here. Between leaving 
H. C. in 1794 and settling here in 1797, he had taught an academy at South 
Berwick, Me. A venerable man, now living, has told me that he was one of 
his pupils there, and that, at the close of the last term, every pupil had a glass 
of wine put into his hand, and the teacher, with a glass in his hand, proposed 
this toast : "The rising g-eneration : may they continue to rise till they all 
meet in heaven." Afler Mr. McKean had his connection with the parish dis- 
solved, his family remained in Milton several years. He married Amy Swasey, 
of Ipswich, and left three sons : Joseph William, Henry Swasey, John George. 
They all graduated at H. C, and were young men of uncommon ability, but 
died too soon to fulfil entirely the promise of their early youth. Of the daugh- 
ters, one married Joseph E. Worcester, LL. D., and another Charles Folsom, 
A. M. Both are now living in Cambridge. 

THE VOSE FAMILY. 

"Aunt Sarah," the widow alluded to on p. 13, was Sarah [Bent] Vose, 
widow of Elijah Vose, and numbering among het descendants, until the present 
war, every one connected with Milton who has been most distinguished for 
military ability. Besides her four sons already mentioned as engaged in our 
Revolutionary war, her grandson, Josiah Howe Vose was a Colonel in the 
U. S. Army. His eldest son, Josiah H. Vose, received an appointment as 
Lieut, in the U. S. A. in 1838 ; but his constitution, naturally delicate, was 
unequal to the hardships and exposures to wiiich he was subjected in the Flor- 



43 

ida war. A sick leave was obtained, and, in the 25th year of his age, he died 
in New York, June 20, 1841, just eighteen hours after his arrival there. Char- 
lotte C, daughter of Col. Josiah H. Vose, married T. O. Barnwell, of the 
U. S. A., and died at Fort Towson, Choctaw Nation, Sept. 9, 1836, aged 23. 
Her sister, Elizabeth, married George P. Field, then Lieut., afterwards a Cap- 
tain in the U. S. A. He was born at Black Rock, near Buffalo, Nov. 11, 
1813. He entered the Military Academy, at West Point, in 1829, and on 
graduating was attached to the Infantry. He was engaged in the war 
with the Seminoles, and afterwards in the Mexican war. He distinguish- 
ed himself in the battles of the Rio Grande, and fell ;it Monterey, at the head 
of his company, while gallantly engaged with the enemy. Captain Field was 
not only a brave officer, but a thoughtful, religious-minded. Christian man. 
His only son, Josiah Howe Vose Field, has just entered on the last year of his 
course in the West Point Military Academy. Col. J. H. Vose's sister Naomi 
married Joseph Heath, of Roxbury, son of the distinguished Gen. William 
Heath ; and his sister, Nancy, married Elisha Sumner, and became the mother 
of Edwin Vose Sumner, now Major General of Volunteers, and Brigadier 
General by Brevet in the TJ. S. A. 

Col. Joseph Vose, "Aunt Sarah's " son, was born in 1738, and, Nov. 5, 
1761, married Sarah Howe, daughter of Josiah Howe, a shoemaker, who mov- 
ed from Dorchester to Milton when Sarah was two years old, and lived in the 
old house next to the burying ground. Joseph Vose was a butcher, engaging 
in the business when a very young man. He carried his meat to market every 
day, going early in the morning and returning late at night, so that sometimes 
he did not see his children from Sunday to Sunday. He built what is now the 
Vose house, on the old Vose place, but a few rods distant from the spot where 
"Aunt Sarah " lived, her house being much nearer the brook. Joseph was the 
Colonel, and Elijah the Lieut. Colonel, of the 1st Mass. Reg., and both distin- 
guished themselves in Washington's army in New Jersey. Moses and Bill 
served in a more humble capacity, but with a zeal and fidelity which demand 
our gratitude and respect. 

Col. Elijah had two children, Hon. Elijah Vose, of Boston, whose son, Hon. 
Henry Vose, is now a Judge in our Superior Court, and Ruth, the wife of 
Eben Breed, of Charlestown. Col. Joseph Vose, who died in 1816, aged 77, 
had eleven children. Sarah was married to Dr. George Osgood, of Andover, 
Mass. Margaret was married to Ezekiel Savage, then of Boston. Solomon 
died at Augusta, Maine, in 1809. Dolly and Nancy were twins ; the former 
married Davis Sumner, and the latter married his brother, Elisha Sumner. 
Naomi married Joseph Heath, of Roxbury, son of Gen'l Heath. Joseph died 
unmarried, in August 1825. Isaac was a merchant ui New Orleans, and died 
in Boston. Elijah died when a child. Elizabeth Eliot is now living. Colonel 
Josiah H. Vose, the youngest son, was born in Milton, Aug. 8, 1784, and died 
in New Orleans, at the U. S. Barracks, July 15, 1845. He " was on parade, 
engaged in drilling his regiment, when he became suddenly indisposed, and af- 
ter turning over his command to the next senior officer, retired to his quarters. 



u 

which he had just reached when he fell dead upon the floor. He was 61 years 
of age, and had been more than 33 years in ih^ service of his country ; having 
been commissioned as a Captain of Infantry in 1812, and p:issed with honor 
through every grade from that to his present rank." Both as an able officer 
and as an upright, kind-hearted man, he was esteemed and trusted while he 
lived, and died lamented and beloved. 

The first of the Vose family in Milton, so far as I can learn, was Robert, 
who, in 1654, purchased the estate now owned by the heirs of Col. Josiah H. 
Vose. He died Oct. 16, 1683, aged 84. His son Edward died Jan. 29, 1716, 
aged 80. A portion of the land which he had from his father, near the south 
foot of Brush Hill, is now owned by his descendants, in the family of the late 
Jesse Vose, senior. Nathaniel, son of Edward, was born Nov. 17, 1672, and 
died October, 1753. At the age of 24 he married Mary Belcher, by whom he 
had six children : Mary, 1697, (she died young,) Nath'l, jr., 1699, Jerusha, 
1702, admitted into Church Dec. 30, 1716, (she married Andrew McKay,) 
Merriam (admitted into Church January 10, 1725, and married Moses Billings), 
Elijah, 1707, (baptized Jan. 4, 1708,) Millatiah, baptized June 25, 1710, (she 
married Henry Crane.) The last name is Millatiah in the IMilton Ch. records, 
but Mehitabel in the family records. 

Elijah was the husband of "Aunt Sarah," and his father, Capt. Nathaniel, 
seems to have been considered the patriarch of the family by all his descend- 
ants. Nath'l and his wife, Mary, were admitted into Church, Dec. 4, 1698. He 
died Oct., 1753. According to a paper, kindly put into my hands by a mem- 
ber of the family, " He was a New England Puritan in faith and practice, 
using great self-denial, and educating his children in the most rigid manner of 
his sect. He ministered daily at the family altar, and continued to do so dur- 
ing the twilight of his life, which was passed in the family of his younger son. 
Early upon the Sabbath morning, would he summons his daughter to the holy 
duties of the day by loudly proclaiming at their doors that the holy women 
were early at the sepulchre. But upon other mornings, he left them to their 
rest. Among the last recollections of his favorite grandson. Col. Joseph Vose, 
was the 17th chapter of Jeremiah, which he used to repeat to his children as 
being the favorite morning lesson for the Sabbath ; he having learned it some 
seventy years before, while sitting on the cricket at his grandfather's feet, 
listening to the family exercise. From his frequent reading and quoting from 
the Scriptures, he was often called "the walking Bible." As a tiller of the 
soil, he wa* so successful that his name has been handed down to the preseni 
generation as ' Farmer Vose.' " 

No one in our day would be so well entitled to this last name as Mr. Jesse 
Vose, of Brush Hill, who died Feb. 15, 1862. " I considered him," said a 
most competent judge, " the best farmer in Milton." But this was only one of 
his claims to respect. He united in himself many of the best qualities of his 
family. He was intelligent and faithful, modest and reserved. He was con- 
stant in his attendance on public worship, and yet a man of deeds more than of 
professions. As a son. a husband and a father, few have been more trusted and 



45 



loved. As a neighbor, he was more reiidy to do a kind act than to talk about 
it ; and no one's advice was more sought and valued by those who needed it. 
The words most fitly describing him were : "What doth the Lord require of 
thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ! " 

AGED PERSONS IN MILTON. 

The person here alluded to on p. 22, was Mr. James Tucker, who died .Fune 
14, 1851. lie was a Brush Hill farmer, an honest, clear-headed m:in, and one 
of the best representatives of his class. There was a shrewdness in his way of 
viewing thirigs and a quaintness in his turn of e.Kpression, which gave an air of 
originality to his conversation, and made it always interesting. There wjis 
souiething very touching in his devotion to the men)ory of his wife, with wlinm 
he had lived so many years. 

His cousin. Rev. Eben^'zer Tucker, who died al the house of his son-in-law, 
Mr. Timothy Tucker, Jan. 14, 184S, aged 85, was graduiited at Harvard Col- 
lege in 1783. He was a minister in Gerry, now Phillipston, till his failing 
hiialth obliged him to give up his profession. After residing elsewhere more 
than sixty years, he came back to his niitive pkice, to spend his last days with 
his daughter and her fanjily He soon began to fiil in body and miml till both 
seemed almost gone. But a little while before he died, believing that bis hnur 
had come, he called the family round him, and gave them his dsing charge, 
talking to them nearly an hour and a half with great clearness and force on 
their Christian duties ; when he sunk biick again into his previous oblivious 
slate, only at intervals having consciousness enough to express his desire to go 
home and be at rest 

Deacon Edward Ca pen, who died October 19, 1860, aged 85, lived near 
these men, and was connected with them by marriage He was a modest, 
kind-hearted, faithful man, and retained his strength of body and mind in a re- 
n)arkalile degree, down to his last illne.-is. During the last year of his life, he 
not unfrequenlly walked to church, a distance of two miles, and back again 
when the services were ended. 

Nearly opposite to Deacon Capen, Simon Ferry am! his wifi', Hhoda, lived 
together nearly fifty-four years — sensible, affectionate, thoughtful people. 
" My mind," he once said to me, with his characteristic modesty, " is simple 
in knowledge " But lie had evidently thought much, especially on religious 
subjects, and his singleness of purpose had certainly led him further into 
the truth than some men of superior intellect.s ever go He died Nov. 10, 
1857, aged 78, and she, Nov. 18, I860, aged 73. She was married before she 
was seventeen. 

Among the aged, though not the most aged men of Milton, when I came here 
in Jan. 1846, was the Hon. John Ruggles. He was an upright, intelligent 
man, decided in his opinions, and spoke like one who was accustomed, as he 
had been, to have his opinions respected. He was born in Milton, Feb. 10, 
1773, in the house now occupied by Mr. John Myers, and died Dec. 19, 1846. 
His wife, who died Sept. 6 1857, was Betsy Wadsworth, and was born in Dan- 



46 

vers, July 4, 1777. She used to say, playfully, that her birth-day had always 
been celebrated throughout the land. They were married in Dan vers, Nov. 5, 
1805, by her father. Rev. Benjamin Wadsworth, and were the parents of 
three children, the oldest of whom, Mary Wadsworth, died in infancy. There 
have been in Mr. Ruggles's family five successive generations of only sons, all 
bearing the name of John Ruggles, and the youngest, who now bears it, is the 
eighth John Ruggles in lineal succession. Both Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles were di- 
rect descendants of Deacon John Wadsworth, younger brother of Rev. Benja- 
min Wadsworth, who was graduated at Harvard College in 1690, and President 
of the College from 1725 to 1737. Mrs. Ruggles's father. Rev. Benj. Wads- 
worth, was born in Milton, July IS, 1750, graduated at H. C. in 1769, ordain- 
ed Minister of the first parish in Dauvers Dec. 23, 1772, made D. D. at H. C, 
1816, and died January 18, 1826, having been the minister of his parish more 
than fifiy-tbres years. He was a man greatly respected by his brethren in the 
ministry. 

Mr Ruggles's father was chosen Town Treasurer of Milton in 1785, which 
office he held by annua! election till his death, Feb. 25, 1821, — thirty-six yeais, 
lacking a few days. He was chosen Town Clerk in 1786, and continued in 
that office till March, 1807, — 21 years. Mr. Ruggles himself was chosen Se- 
lectman in March, 180.'), and remained in the office till IMarch, 1826 — twenty- 
one years ; and from 1811, fifteen years he was chairman of the board. He 
was also chairman of the board of Selectmen from 1830 to 1835, — making the 
whole number of years he held the office twenty-six, twenty of which he was 
chairman. He was one of the Assessors twenty-five years, and chairman nine- 
teen. He was first chosen Town Clerk in 1814, and held that office till 1835, 
twenty-one years, when he declined further service in town offices. " It is a 
notable circumstance," says Mr. Jason Reed, our present Town Clerk, " that 
for precisely fifty years continuously, Mr. Ruggles and his father held impor- 
tant town offices ; for forty-two of these years they together held the office of 
Town Clerk, and for twenty-three years important town offices at the same 
time." Mr. Ruggles was representative to the Massachusetts General Court 
seven years, and State Senator five years, from 1820 tc 182-5. 

Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles lived together more than forty-one years. I think the 
last word he was heard to utter was " Kternity," as if he were already looking 
into its mysterious and awful depths. His wife, who survived him nearly elev- 
en years, was of a sensitive, delicate nature, and very humble in her religious 
feelings. She was a woman of strong personal attachments, and faithfully and 
wisely fulfilled the duties of a Christian wife and mother. 

RUGGLES. 

1. Thomas came from England and settled in Roxbury with his son, 

2. John, then about 12 years of age. 

3. John, of Roxbury. 

4. John, " " 

5. Capt John and Katherine (Williams). " " 



47 

6. Ciipt. John and Mary (Wadsworth) ; he removed to Milton. 

7. Hon. John and Betsy (Wadsworlh). 

8. Betsy (Ruggles) Davenport and John ; the former married Franris W. 

Davenport, of Milton, the Davenports being early settlers of that town ; 
the latter married Mary L. Gardner, daughter of Hon. S. P. Gardner, 
of Bolton. 

9. Mary Gardner and John. 

WADSWORTH. 

1. Christopher, one of the early Plymouth Pilgrims, settled at Duxl.ury, with 

iVIiles Standish ; had by wife Grace, Joseph, John, Samuel and Mary. 

2. Capt Samuel, born at Duxbury about 1()3(», married Abigail, daughter of 

James Lindall, of Marshfieid ; appears at Milton, lfi5(i ; killed at Sud- 
bury, 167t). 

3. Dea. John, born 1674, died 1733-4, and Eliz. (Vose) ; they had eleven 

children. 

4. Deacon Benjamin, born 17(t7, died 1771, and Esther (Tucker); they had 

ten children. Their house was standing a few years since at "Scotch 

Woods." 
5 Kev. Benj. and Mary (Hobson). Also, Mary, married to Captain John 

Ruggles. 
6. Betsy, married to Hon John Ruggles. 

The six oldest inhabitants of Milton whose funer;ils I have attended, were : 

Miss Sallv Tucker who died Nov. 29, 1849, aged 93, 

Mrs. Rebecca Howe who died Oct. 4, 1858, aged 86, 

Miss Mary Crane who died Jan. 10, I860, aged 95, 

Miss Mary Vose who died Feb. 18, 18f)0, aged 86, 

Mrs. Mary Taylor who died March 16, I860, aged 89, 

Mrs Sally Penniman who died Nov. 14, 1860, aged 86. 

All of these, it will be noticed, were women ; and half the number, including 
the two oldest, had never been married. With the exception of Miss Crane, 
whose mind had been clouded for some years before her death, and, perhaps, 
Miss Vose, they all retained their faculties to the last, and kept up their inter- 
est, not only in the generations that had passed away, but in the living world 
around them. Four of the six died in the same year. 

THE FAMH.Y OF RUFU.'^ PIERCE. 

The allusion p. 23 is to the family of Rufus Pierce, son of William and Eu- 
nice (Bent) Pierce. He was born in 1751, and married Elizabeth Howe, 
daughter of Josiah Howe and sister of Sarah (Howe), wife of Colonel Joseph 
Vose. Josiah Howe was engaged in the shoe-making business, on what was 
then considered a large scale. He died October 3, 17!i2, aged 73 When our 
Revolutionary war with England broke out, he became very much depressed, 
and, like some faint-liearted or despondent persons now, he could see no pros- 



48 



perous issue out of the sad and- troubled times in which he lived. His sou, Jo- 
siah Howe, removed to Templeton, and was the fatiier of Josiah Howe, M. D., 
a physician of considerable distinciion and ahilit}' in Westminster. The chil- 
dren of Rufus and Elizabeth Pierce were, Elizabeth, horn Oct. 19, 1775, mar- 
ried, Nov. 30, 1817, Willia.n Briggs, and still living in the house built and 
occupied by her father, — Lemuel, born Feb. 9, 1778, —Sarah, born July 16, 
1780, married, March U), 1803, Samuel Littletield, — Margaret, born April 29, 
1783, married Jeremiah 'V. Fenno, died August 14, 1857, — Eunice, now Mrs. 
Lord, born Feb. 24, 1787,— Nancy, born July 13, 179(1, married Gideon F. 
Thayer, the eminent teacher, died Nov. 21, 1854, — 3Iary, born Dec. 5, 1795, 
married Zipheon Thayer, died May 14, 1837, — Rufus, born March 31, 1798, 
now livmg in Illinois, — and Mariha, born July l(j, 180! , niarried Abel Wy- 
man, and dii'd April 183fi Mary was the person nl" whom Dr. Channing 
spoke. 

ANN BENT. 
Miss Ann Bent's jjrandfather was Alexander Middlcton, a Scotchman who 
lived in Boston. He left lour daughters : Mary Miiidlet(ni, who married James 
Lovell, son of " ;\Iasler Lovell." She was Mrs Heniy Ware's gr.mdmother. 
She had several sons, only one daughter, Mary, who married Mr. Murk Pick- 
ard. Gen. MansHeld Lovell, of Mew Orleans, is her ^reat grand-son. Ann 
Middleton married Ru'us Bent, who was born in Mikon, one of four brothers — 
Joseph, Lemuel, William and Rufus. Their only sister was Eunice, who mar- 
ried William I'ierce, and was the grandmother of Mrs. Elizabeth Briggs. Ru- 
fus and Ann Bent lived in Milton and Boston. They had seven children, — 
two sons, who diovl at sea, and five daughters. He died at his daughter's in 
Canton, in 1807, and his wife, at a daughter's in Dorchester Upper Mills in 
1805. Prudence Middleton married Dr. Joseph Whipple, who lived in Boston. 
Ann Bent, the eldest of the five sisters, was born in Milton and died in Canton, 
(wheie she is buried,) in 1851), aged eighty-eight years and three months. Her 
parents were poor, and she went, when quite young, to live with Madam 
Price, an Lnglish lady who lived in Hopkinton. Mrs. Price was very l<ind to 
her, and she retained her friendship through life. She was there several years. 
She returned lo Milton, took a school, lived in Judge Robbins's funily, who liv- 
ed in what is now the Churchill house, on Milton Hill for three years. His 
three eldest children attended her school. She was very much attached to the 
whole family, and retained their esteem and friendship during her life. In 1795 
she found a more lucrative position in Boston. She took the store, 56 Marl- 
boro' Street, whert! W. il. Allen's store in Washington Street now is. Messrs. 
Gregory and Pickard (Mr. P. was Mrs. Ware's father,) stocked it with rich 
goods whii-h ihey importedfor her to sell on commission. Two of her sisters went 
into the store with her. They boarded with Mrs. Thayer (mother of Rev. Dr. 
Thayer, of Lancaster), in what is now Washington St., opposite Central Ct. 
Sally, ihe youngest ^ister, soon married Mr. Charles Barnard, wiio ais boaid- 
ed there. Miss Bent then purchased the building adjoining her store, and kept 



49 

house, with her sister Mary to assist her. Nancy Pierce (afterward Mrs. G F. 
Thayer), and Fanny Cushing (afterwards Mrs. Dr. Stone, of Greenfield, and 
mother of Gen. C. P. Stone, now at Fort Lafayette,) were her assistants. Her 
two oldest nieces, Ann 3Iiddleton Allen (now Mrs. Tracy) and Mary Bent 
Kinsley, girls of ten years, living with her, she sent to school. This formed 
her family for many years, with a domestic, Nabby Tower, who lived with her 
thirty years. The two assistants married, and the two nieces took their place. 
When they were seventeen years old, she put them in a position to assist their 
large families. She then took two more nieces into her family, — Ann Kingsley 
and Sarah Barnard Kingsley. Her sister Prudence married Mr. Silas Kings- 
ley, of Canton, where she is now living, eighty-eight years old, and the last of 
her family. 

A niece of Miss Bent, to whom I am indebted for most of these details, says 
of her, " The beauty and purity of my aunt's character no one knows better 
than myself. I lived in the most intimate relations with her for more than for- 
ty years. I never saw her do or heard her say anything that might not have 
been said or done before the whole world. In her business relations she was 
perfecHo7i, she was so high-minded and so just to everybody in her dealings 
and her estimation of character. She was a mother to her sisters and their 
children, ever thinking of their good." These were the qualities which made 
steadfast friends of those whose friendship was most to be sought, and formed for 
her a home in which she was never allowed to feel the loneliness of celibacy or 
age. The affluent, the educated and the refined valued her society, and were 
among her cherished friends. But there was a nearer circle yet. Children 
were drawn towards her, and as one generation of those to whom she had been 
as a mother left her to establish homes of their own, others, still younger took 
their place, and looked up to her with love and reverence. Thus her bene- 
factions, performed with no selfish intent, returned into her own bosom. And 
those who were as dear to her as children and children's children delighted to do 
what they could to lighten for her the burden of increasing years, and to fill the 
atmosphere around her with the affections in which it was a joy for her to 
live. The example is one that cannot be too warmly commended. 

REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN OF MILTON. 

Louisa Goddard Wigglesworth, the person described p. 28, was the daugh- 
ter of Isaac and Mary [MayJ Davenport. Mr. Davenport was one of a family 
which had been in Milton, or at least in Dorchester, [See History of Dorches- 
ter,] almost from its earliest settlement He was born in Milton, and was for 
many years a merchant in Boston, the partner of John McLean. He left but 
two children, both daughters. Louisa was much younger than her sister and 
usually spent her winters in Boston. But her earliest associations bound her to 
Milton, where every knoll and stream and tree was dear to her. She loved the 
place for its own sake and for her father's sake. She was a liberal benefactor 
to the Church. She knew something about all the old Milton families, and 
kept np her interest in them as long as she lived. 

7 



50 

She was married to Samuel Wigglesworth, M. D. in Boston, Dec. 7, 1841, 
Their eldest child, Samuel Norton, was born Aug. 23, 1845. Dr. Wiggles- 
worth had already begun to suffer from a most painful disease. Her eye-sight 
had begun to fail, and she probably never saw their second son, Francis Thos., 
who was born on the 17th of September, 1846. Dr. Wigglesworth died the 
following spring, April 7, 1847. Her mother, the sister of Col. Joseph and 
Dea. Samuel May, of Boston, died Nov. 20, 1853, aged 84 years and 10 mos. 
Her son, Francis Thomas, a boy of unusual beauty and loveliness of character, 
died the 17th of April, 1854. Hercousin, Miss Catherine Davenport, who had 
always made a part of hor father's family, died soon after. Still she did her 
part faithfully and well, performing duties from which others situated as she 
was, even without her loss of sight, might have excused themselves and been 
unblamed. She took an interest in whatever occurred, and even in objects 
of natural scenery, which were described to her as she was passing them. She 
visited the While Mountains, and seemed really and heartily to catch the in- 
spiration of the place, and to appreciate and enjoy the views around her. But 
as, from year to year, one object after another of interest and nfTection to her 
became detached from life, it was easy to see that her hold on life, both bodily 
and mental, was growing less. In March, 1859, she came out to Milton to at- 
tend the funeral of Josiah Cotton, a black man whom she had known from her 
earliest childhood as a servant in her father's household, and the last surviving 
member of that household. Her health soon after began to fail, and she died 
in INIilton, .Tuly 17, 1859. Her only remaining son, Samuel Norton Wiggles- 
worth, died the 15th of November, 18()l. 

'J'here are other persons whom I should be glad to mention here, — women 
taken away in the prime of life, whose lives v\'ere a benefaction to the commu- 
nity, and whose names call up now tender and affecting memories. There was 
no duty too difficult to be performed by them with cheerfulness, or too humble 
to be made attractive by the grace which they bestowed upon it. Through 
th'^ir gracious :ind kindly interposition, in many cases, sickness lost much of its 
severity. Friendless women were sought out and made to feel that they were 
not alone in the world, or wholly shut (Jut from its sympathy and advantages. 
They were steadfast and loyal in their friendships. One could hardly meet 
them without carrying away something which it was both refreshing and useful 
to remember. They loved to do a kind act for its own sake and not because 
of large returns that they were seeking from any philanthropical investment 
which they might make. No oni? who knew them would hesitate to apply to 
them for counsel or effective aid in any enterprize of mercy or beneficence that 
come, even by the most liberal interpretation of good neighborhood, within their 
sphere- They have passed away, but the scenes on which they looked are 
more beautiful, the places they loved are more sacred, and the work they did 
is more easy now because of the spirit in which they lived. 

And there were others of an earlier generation, who lived out their four 
score years and more, — women of dignified personal bearing and of remarkable 
conversational powers. Blue Hill and Brush Hill and Milton Hill had their 



51 

representative women, — ladies of the old school, who had not feared to improve 
their minds by substantial reading and thinking. In their personal deportment 
there was that combination of dignity and kindness which secures our respect 
at the same time that it gains our confidence and affection. A lasting impression 
was often made upon the young by their conversation, which was none the less 
attractive because it was instructive, nor any the less entertaining because it 
was always high-toned in sentiment, and touching often on great and important 
subjects. They recognized their obligations to liic community in which they lived 
and to all its members. They were ready to do their part in sustaining all good 
institutions, and deserve especially to be remembered and imitated in their re- 
lations to the poor. The influx of destitute foreigners, a few ye:irs ago, render- 
ed public measures necessary to meet the heavy and multiplied calls of charity. 
But already that emergency has subsided, and there is danger lest public soci- 
eties and relief provided by law should so interpose themselves betwt-en us and 
the poor whom we have always with us as to do away the pleasant and mutu- 
ally beneficent relations which formerly connected a thoughtful, charitable wo- 
man with the needy and suffering around her. The relation was not one 
entirely of dependence on their pari and of charity on hers. Her superior 
intelligence assisted and guided them She taught them to help themselves, 
and encouraged their self-respect by enabling them to feel that they were doing 
sonjething for her in return for her kindness to them. There were thus cher- 
ished between the parties habits of personal intercourse, sustained by feelings 
of deference and kindness and gratitude, which gave her a salutary influence 
over them, and ministered to the happiness of all. 

Women of this character, representatives of the high breeding and better 
thought of a former generation, were here when 1 came to Milton. They seem- 
ed less like fleeting individuals than settled institutions, or permanent features 
"m the landscape. I could hardly approach one of them without a subdued sen- 
timent of tenderness and reverence. It seemed to me sometimes as if I could 
see the history of a whole life-tune written out on the countenance, in charac- 
ters which pointed far back into the past, and forward to a sky all aglow with 
hopes of future reunion and recognition. The shadows of many years had fall- 
en upon ihem ; but there were new lights kindled for them in heaven. If they 
connected us with the past, they drew us also towards the future. The birds 
thai come together to prepare for their departure when the summer days are 
beginning to put on an autumnal hue, take our thoughts back to the pleasant 
season which has been gladdened by their songs, and lead them forward to the 
sunny lands where their joyful home shall be when our bleak coast is scourged 
by the winter storms. So do they — our aged and beloved ones — stand before 
us, as messengers about to depart for other lands, and we can hardly see Ihein 
without having our thoughts carried on from the cares and fears which attend 
us here, to the serenity, and joy, and everlasting peace which await them there. 



52 



MILTON IVAMES. 

A sketch of the different families of Milton, their changing features, position, 
influence and character, would be full of interest and instruction. To trace 
the history of those who have removed from this place and see how the same 
traits which have been recognized here are developed elsewhere, what new 
features grow out of them or are engrafted upon them by altered circumstances 
and relations, would be a profitable work, and if intelligently and thoroughly 
carried out, it might do something in a small way, to throw light on one of the 
most important questions of the age, the distinction of families and races, and 
the manner in which they are moulded by external influences so as to lose their 
separate characteristics and become absorbed into one another. Researches of 
this kind, to be of any value, must be exceedingly minute and comprehensive. 
But there is also a superficial, disconnected way of viewing the subject, which 
is not without its interest to those who are attached to the place and the people 
living in it. 

Of the twelve persons who signed the original Church Covenant in Milton, 
four bore names, Newton, Holman and Blacke (William and Edward), which 
are no longer found here. Sumner, Clap, Lion and Swift still remain. The 
Sumners have been a numerous and influential family. And sixty years ago, I 
have been told, that at a Town Meeting in Milton, no public measure could be 
carried which was opposed by John Swift, the energetic head of an important 
family which is now represented here by only one male member. The remain- 
ing four signers of the Covenant all bore the name of Tucker. During Mr. 
Thacher's ministry, there was usually a Dea. Tucker, Senior, and a Dea. 
Tucker, Junior. At the present time, the Tuckers hold, probably, about the 
same rank in numbers and position. There are to-day two deacons of that 
name in Milton. The first of the name that I find here was Robert. Mr. Sav- 
age gives this account of him : *' Robert, Weymouth, 1638, had Sarah, born 
17 March, 1629, and, I think, Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh, besides pos- 
sibly others, before or after removal. He was fined in 1640, for upbraiding 
James Britain, as a witness ; called him a liar and said he could prove it ; of 
which the character of Britain may lead us to think he might be right ; remov- 
ed to IJorchester, that part which became in 1662 Milton, for which he was 
representative 1669-80 and 1." This Robert Tucker was the " Recorder for 
Milton," when the town was first incorporated. It is said, probably somewhat 
hyperbolically, that there have been times when the Tuckers and Voses com- 
bined could out vote all the rest of the town. 

Of the 114 names which I find in Mr. Thacher's records of baptisms and 
admissions to the Church, 34 are still found here, and 78 are no longer repre- 
sented by any man in Milton. I give below these 114 names in Mr. Thacher's 
somewhat peculiar orthography, marking with an asterisk those which are now 
extinct among us. 



53 



Adiiins 


Durant* 


Hunt 


Stimson* 


Andrews* 


Eastee* 


Hunter* 


Sunmer 


Atherton* 


Eeles* 


Jemmeson* 


Swan 


Badcock 


Endicot* 


Jordon* 


Swetland* 


Badlanibs* 


Everenden* 


Jones 


Swift 


Bailey* 


Field 


Kelton* 


Swinnerton* 


Beal 


Fenno 


Kinsley* 


Talbut* 


Belcher* 


Ford* 


Langley* 


Thacher* 


Bent 


Foster 


Liscoine* 


Toleman 


Bentlet* 


Frissel* 


MacKee* 


Tompson* 


Billings* 


Ganzey or Garsey* 


' Man* 


Triscol* 


Black* 


Glover* 


Miller* 


Trot* 


Blake 


Gold or Gould 


Montgomery* 


Tucker 


Blair* 


Gouliver* 


Mooree* 


Vose 


Chandler 


Graeciaii* 


Mos (Morse ?) 


Wadland* 


Clap 


Gregory* 


Newton* 


Wadsworth 


(\>llin 


Grosse* 


Peirce 


Wales 


Craine* 


Harper* 


Pitcher* 


Warren 


Crehore 


Haughton 


Puffer* 


Web 


Daninion, or 


Hayden* or 


Rawson* 


Weeks* 


Damon* 


Heiden 


Redman* 


Wheeler 


Daniel* 


Henshire* 


Rider* 


White 


Davenport 


Hersey* 


Robards or Robers 


. wier* 


Davis 


Hichborne* 


Roy* 


Williston* 


Dean* 


Holman* 


Sawyer* 


Witherbee* 


Denmark* 


H orton* 


Scot 


Witherton* 


Dennis* 


How* 


Sheperd 


Withinton* 


Dickerman 


Hubhard* 


Smith 


Woody* 


Dike* 


Hudson* 


Spencer* 





Of the 34 names still found in Milton, quite a number, e. g. Smith, Web and 
Warren, have died out in the old stock, and are now represented by those 
who are inhabitants here of a comparatively recent date. Not 30 of the 114 
names recorded before 1727 are now perpetuated here by lineal descendants of 
those then living in the town. These simple facts show the migratory charac- 
ter of our most stable N. E. population. A few families, e. g. Babcock, Tucker, 
Vose, hold now, perhaps, nearly the place which they held at the beginning of 
the last century. Others, e. g. Gulliver, Crehore, Billings, Henshaw, Belcher, 
Ford, have either entirely disappeared, or are reduced to a single male member. 
And not only families, but races have disappeared. The names of Indians and 
Negroes appear on our Church records, but at this time I think there is not one 
Indian man or woman, nor one Negro family, in Milton. 

Besides the names which 1 have given, and which belong to the first 65 years 
of our history as a town, there are families which have come into the town, ex- 
ercised an important influence for a generation or two, and then disappeared. 



54 

Mr. Robbins has mentioned several such families. Gov. Bel'iher and Gov. 
Hutchinson, though living in a measure apart from the surrounding inhabitants, 
were parishioners in this place, and attendants at this church. The 
Thachers were represented here in four generations. The names, Smith, Boies, 
Holbrook, Amory, Baldwin, recall to our older citizens the remembrance of 
families, which, though never numerous and now represented here by no living 
descendant, held once a high place among the fimiiies of Milton. The M'Leans, 
father and son, ought not to be omitted in any notice, however slight, of the 
prominent Milton families. John .M'Lean was born at (Jeorges, near Thomas- 
ton, Me., in 1761. His father, Hugh M'Lean, removed soon after to Milton, 
where he engaged, and at length became largely interested, in the business of 
paper-making. He lived in the house now occupied by Mr. George Hollings- 
worth, and died Dec. 1799, aged 75 John M'Lean. during the laiter part of 
his life, was in partnership vviih Mr. Isaac Davenport. He died Oct. 16, 1823, 
aged 62. Both father and son are buried in Milton. John M'Lean will be 
honorably known, for many generations to come, as the munificent benefictor, 
if not the founder, of the M'Lean Asylum for the Insane, at Somerville, and of 
the Mass. General Hospital in Boston. He was also the founder of the M'Lean 
Professorship of Ancient and Modem History in Harvard University. He be- 
queathed to the (^ongreg.itional Society in Milton, and also to that in Federal 
Street, Boston, two thousand dollars each, the income to be distributed annu- 
ally to such persons, "not paupers," as the minister and deacons of the re- 
spective societies " should deem suitable for such relief." Few men have 
done more than ho did permanently to relieve human suflering in some of its 
most aggravated fDrnis, and no one better deserves to be held in grateful remenir 
brance for the perpetual benefactions which his wisdom and benevolence have 
devised and carried out. Yet the way in which our citizens are most frequently 
reminded of him seems to savor a little of ostentation. The mile-stones on the 
Brush Hill turnpike bear this inscription, "J M'Lean, 1823." The common 
impression, 1 believe, is, that these mile-stones, with this inscription, were 
erected by himself But it was not so. They were erected by Mr. Isaac 
Davenport, at Mr. M'Lean's request and expense, and as they were not finished 
till after Mr. M'Lean's death, Mr. Davenport had this inscription put upon 
them, as a sort of monumental testimonial to his friend and partner. 

Here I close these brief, imperfect, shadowy memorials of a past, whose spirit 
goes with us where we go, and, under the guiding hand of God, has made us 
what we are. It is a false philosophy that would separate the living from the 
dead, and send the children of each generation, fatherless and motherless, mto 
the world, to seek their fortunes, and to form their own characters. As we in- 
herit our flesh and blood from our ancestors, so we are born into the ideas, sen- 
timents, institutions, and habits which are the result of their living through ma- 
ny generations, and which we cannot change at pleasure by any arbitrary act 
of ours, but only as we change the quality of trees and plants, within certain 
limits, and in obedience to established laws. We grow out of the past. Its 
life flows through our veins. And yet we can modify that life. We can graft 



55 

upon it better ideas. We can live amid wliat was low, parsimonious, and un- 
generous in our ancestors, and perpetuate it with an added intensity and defor- 
mity of our own, or we can live amid what was lofty, disinterested, and praise- 
worthy in them, and thus help to purify and advance the tone of private and 
public sentiment in the community. It is with this purpose that I have taken a 
satisfaction, not wholly sad, though not entirely free from sadness, in walking, as 
it were, a little while among the graves, and calling up anew the forms of dear 
and honored ones, that, while moved and impressed by the memory of their 
virtues, I might soothe the feeling of personal bereavement by writing down 
their n-imes, or, where that seemed too much an intrusion into the sacred pri- 
vacy in which they moved, that I might at least refresh my own thoughts by 
the more inspiring images of holiness and piety which they furnish, and bind 
myself more firmly to heaven by the renewed affections which follow them into 
that higher realm. 

To those who may look, a hundred years hence, at the church records which 
I have kept, there will appear only a catalogue of names. But to me almost 
every record that I have made recalls a scene which has its peculiar interest. 
Each wedding has its own little story of life's dearest hopes, fulfilled or disap- 
pointed. Each baptism calls up its own affecting image cf the relation which 
the greatest artists have endeavored to express in their pictures, of the Madonna 
and her child, a new creation of God, to her at once the gift and the imperson- 
ation of the divine love. Each death, with the :iccompanying date and name, 
tells of a whole completed history, which, if it could be related in truthful, 
loving words, would be not without its interest and its uses even to strangers. 
I had wished to clothe some of these names with life again, that affections so 
gentle, hearts so true, countenances so beaming with intelligence and benignity, 
minds so thoughtful and so modest, a faith so humble and so lofty, a charity so 
gracious and self-forgetting, might not wholly perish in this place of their earth- 
ly abode, when those who knew and loved then; here have all departed. But 
such things cannot be. We have our sainted dead, and those who come after 
us will have theirs .May we and they alike be true to the holiest memories which 
come to us from the past, till those memories become blended in our lives with 
the hopes which draw us on into a future still more beautiful and holy. 

If a single copy of this pamphlet should, like a stray leaf on some troubled 
stream, be borne down to those who shall take part in the tri-centenary cele- 
bration of our town, we, from these sad times of civil war and present disasters, 
thus far bravely met and hopefully endured, would send them our kindly greet- 
ing, and our earnest prayer that they, under more peaceful skies and with 
greater fidelity and success, may labor, as we have sought to do, that the taber- 
nacle of God may be with men, that he may dwell with them, and that they 
may be his people. 

Milton, Wednesday evening, Sept. 10, 1862. 



1 TRRARY OF CONGRESS 



